 We're going to read this creed which is universally accepted amongst Trinitarian Christians, amongst the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, as well as Protestants, all of them affirm this creed. And like I said, there's, we only have now less than an hour, so there's no time to get into like the history of Christianity, especially the first three centuries, and not a lot of time to get into refutations and things like that, but we are going to simply read these creeds and do a little bit of commentary on them. It's very important for us to understand exactly what Christians believe, so that we won't assume incorrect things and then simply build strawmen. So beginning with this creed here, this is the creed that was, like I said, ratified 325 of the Common Era after the Council of Nicaea. This was the first ever ecumenical church council. The Cretal Exposition of the Faith by the 318 Fathers were the church, the church bishops, the Christian bishops that attended the Council. So the bishops begin by saying, we believe in one God, the Greek says, this is the Greek original, Pistia Amen, Aesthena Theon, Patera Pantocratora. So we believe in one God, the Father, who is the creator of all. In the Latin translation, if you'll notice the word is omnipotentum, which means the omnipotent. It continues, the maker of all things, seen and unseen. And we believe in one, and the word here is Kurian, which is translated as Lord. The word Kurian is a bit ambiguous. It's used in the New Testament for God, but also for human beings. The word Kurian could be master or teacher, even rabbi. Certainly here in the Nicene Creed, the authors of the Creed meant it as a way of saying God. And we'll see that in a minute. But this is a common juxtaposition you'll find in Christian literature of God, the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a juxtaposition you find in the Paulian Epistles in the New Testament, letters written by Paul, where God equals the Father and Lord is Jesus Christ. And Paul actually most likely meant this juxtaposition as a way of demonstrating that they are actually unequal, that they're not the same. That Jesus is not, or Jesus Christ is not equal to God, but is somehow divine nonetheless. It's very difficult to wrap our hands around exactly what Paul is saying about Jesus, what exactly is his Christology. Is he saying that Jesus is not God? Is he saying that he is God in some way, but in some limited way? Or is he saying that he is in fact God and he's the same essence as the Father? Different ways of reading Paul. But here in the Nicene Creed, God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are, or will be, you'll see, equalized explicitly. So this is what Christians believe. Christians believe that the Son of God is God, essentially. So he continues here. They continue saying in the Creed, You say you, the Son of God, which means this is from, the Son is from the essence, the essence of the Father. The word here for essence, is not a biblical term, but it's the word that the early Church Fathers use to denote God's essence. So when we talk about Trinitarian theology, we're talking about one essence of God. God is one essence, but he has three persons, three particulars. One usia that is shared by three hypotheses, those are the Greek terms, for to translate them to English. One essence or one nature that is shared by three separate and distinct persons. So it's important for us to get this distinction between nature or essence and person, where you can say universal and particular. So for example, let's imagine that there are only three species of shark. There's a great white shark, there's a hammerhead shark, and there's a tiger shark. So all three of them are essentially shark, even though the great white shark doesn't have a head like a hammer, it doesn't make him any less shark. Nothing of his sharpness is deprived by not having a hammerhead. He is 100% shark. So all three are shark 100% in essence, but they are also three particulars who are different. So the three persons of the Trinity are not the same person, they're three separate persons, three separate particulars, but they share the same essence. So that's an important distinction. But going on here, they continue to, as we said, be gotten of the Father uniquely. This is from the essence of the Father. And then they go on to describe who is the Son of God, right? Because the issue at Nicaea was the Son of God. Who is the Son of God? Is the Son of God somehow ontologically inferior to God the Father? Or is he God the Father? So there are two camps represented at the Council of Nicaea. Again, this is the first ever ecumenical church council held in the early fourth century. Now mind you, by this time there were no more, you know, what are known as judicizers or Jewish Christians. You know, the first Christians, they were not Christians at all. They were actually a sect of Judaism who happened to believe that Isa, alaihi salam, was the Messiah in some sense and that he was a prophet. And there's different names that are given in early literature for this group. One of the names is the Nutsrim, which is Hebrew, the Nazarenes. And it seems like the Qur'anic epithet for Christians and Nassarra is related to the the word Nutsrim. And why they call the Nazarenes is as Isa, alaihi salam was raised in a city called Nazareth, which is in the north of Palestine in the province called Galilee. The early Christians were also called Ev yonim, which means something like these spiritual paupers or the poor people. But nonetheless, so here in the creed we have that so basically what I was kind of lost my throat, I thought there at the Council of Nicaea, you don't have a night or Nazarene presentations of Christians that have some authority in the empire that have difference of opinion regarding the ontological status of the Son of God. On one side, you have areas of Alexandria who did not believe that the Son of God was divine in the sense that he was equal to God, the Father. Now there's a lot of speculation about Arian Christology. We don't really know what Arius really believed about the Son of God, but it appears as if Arius believed that the Son of God was a created entity and totally ontologically, that is to say, essentially inferior to God, the Father. So he's representing one side. And then you have Athanasius on the other side who is representing the position that the Son of God is in fact God the Son, that the Father and the Son are equal essentially. And then they took a vote at the Council of Nicaea, a very democratic process that indeed the vote favored the latter position of Athens and so the Son of God officially became God the Son. And of course, Christ believed that whatever dogma is hammered out or is produced at these ecumenical church councils, and of course, Nicaea being the first one, whatever dogma comes out of these councils considered to be actually infallible, right, and binding up to believe it. Now every Christian has to believe that the Son of God is equal to God the Father. And so we have this statement here in the Nicene Creed about the Son of God that says ectheiu, God from God, fos ecthotas, light from light, you know, feon aleifinon ecthaleifinu, right, you guys see that true God from true God. And then that thing in a fenta upoi a fenta, begotten not made. What does that mean? Begotten not made. So again, here at Fathers the bishops are talking about the Son of God, that he's begotten. What does it mean? What do they mean by begotten? Well, here they don't mean anything physical. They mean generated or caused naturally that the Son of God was caused by the Father, right? So they freely say that the Son is the effect of the cause and the Father is the cause. Now logically speaking, an effect is always after the cause, right? In earthly relationships, Son is always after the Father in temporality, because the Father causes the Son. Trinitarian exegesis, Trinitarian theologian, they say, that there's no time between the Father and the Son, that even though the Father is these of the Son, the Father does not have a temporal precedence over the Son. Why? Because the Son was begotten, the Father was caused or generated in pre-eternality, right, before time, right? So the Father does not have temporal precedence over the Son, nor does the Father have ontological superiority over the Son. Why? Because when the Father generated the Son, or when the Father caused the Son, and they use that word begotten, when the Father begot the Son in pre-eternality, the Father begot the Son from his own essence, from his own ust, that term again, essence or substance. So then the Son is exactly equal to the Father, even though the Son is caused by the Father. And this is a bit of a paradox in their theology. So, but this is something they believe in. Begotten not made means the Son is caused naturally. The Son was not willed into existence. This is not a Trinitarian belief, in other words, because when God will something into existence, it means that this thing was created by God, right? So, for example, in Arabic, the word Sha'a, the verb Sha'a Ya Sha'u, is related to the noun, right? Lesa kaniflihi shei. A shei is something that is willed into existence, right? The word is related to the word will. But for Christians, the Son of God is not willed into existence. In other words, he's not created, right? So it's not like in Judaism where, or in Islam, where everything other than God is willed into existence because it is created. In Trinitarian theology, the Son of God is not willed to exist. He always existed, right? It is just part of the nature of God, they say, to be a father, right? It was never a time when he was not a father. Arius actually had to position, you know, the position that was defeated at Nicaea. He called the Son of God by the Greek catisma teleon, which means the best of creation. So it seems, again, we don't really know exactly, but it seems like the position of Arius, who was defeated at the Council of Nicaea by Athanasius and the Trinitarians, it seems like his position was that the Son of God was in fact created and willed into existence. So that's the Neil Platonus, and I recommend people, you know, conduct further research and studies into early Christian origins and the incredible influence of a philosophy known as Neoplatonism upon the early Trinitarian thinkers. There are certainly very clear parallels between Platinus' thinking, the founder, if you will, of Neoplatonism, and the early Trinitarian theologians, especially the Cappadocians and Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo. But the one point of difference between Trinitarian theology and Neoplatonic theology, if you will, is that the Neoplatonists, they said that the second emanation of God, that they call the logos, right, the word, was the result of a sort of involuntary spillage of light without really God's concern. So the Christian position is certainly not that. In other words, the Son was not caused by the Father due to some involuntary emanation. And at the same time, the Son was not caused by the Father through an act of will. In other words, the Son is not created, right? Both of these positions, which you can say sort of the Jewish position as well as a Neoplatonic position with respect to the quote unquote origins of the Son are rejected by Christians. Their position is that the Son always existed and that God is just naturally a Father and he always was a Father. And even though the Father caused the Son, there was never a time when the Father existed and the Son did not because the Father begot the Son in pre-eternality from his own essence. I know that's a bit confusing. Watch this over again and meditate on it, inshallah, and it'll sink in a bit more. If you're interested in a quick sort of a great book on this that's short and doable is Tarmotom, T-O-O-M, Tarmotom, Classical Trinitarian Theology, an excellent resource. But continuing here, so God from God. So again, they're talking about the Son of God here, who's God from God, light from light, true God from true God. And then that famous phrase, begotten not made. So again, begotten not made. What does that mean? It means that he was caused not created. The Son of God is uncreated. Here we're talking about the Son of God in the sort of celestial realm of things or what you might say in the world of universals, as someone like Plato might have said. We're not talking about the physical body of Jesus Christ. Obviously, that was created. That was flesh and blood. So that's a separate issue. We're not saying that Jesus Christ as a man is uncreated. That's not what Christians believe. The body of Jesus Christ, the flesh and blood is certainly created. We're talking about the essence that incarnated into the flesh. If you studied Platonic metaphysics, Plato has this idea of the divided line that everything above the line is in the world of universals and particulars and immutables and everything below the line is particular and created and mutable. So the body of Christ, the physical body of Christ is below Plato's divided line. It's certainly flesh and blood. It's mutable. It aged. It could be hurt, but his essence is from the celestial realm. Okay. And then you have this very important term here in the creed. The Greek is hamaousian, but I've translated it as co-substantial, hamaousian tupati, co-substantial with the father. So what does hamaousian mean? Again, this term is not biblical. You won't find it in the New Testament. So these are sort of Greek philosophical terms that were used by the proto-Orthodox Church fathers in order, according to them, as escalating what they believe to be true about what the New Testament is teaching. So hamaousian Christ, this is the position of Trinitarians. It literally means same. And then ousian or ousias, there's that term. Essence, same essence Christology comes from Christos and Lagos, basically belief about Christ. So hamaousian Christology is basically this belief that the Son of God is of the same exact essence as the Father. And there are different types of Christologies. You also have something called hamaousian, which looks the same as hamaousias, but there's an iota in there, the Greek letter iota that makes a world of difference, which hamaousian Christology means similar essence, so not quite, but somehow less. There's then sort of a privation of perfection, but still possibly a divine being. So that's not the position of the Trinitarians. And then, of course, you have hetoro-ousian. Hetoro means other essence Christology. This is the position of Arius. This is the position of Jews when it comes to the Messiah, although Jews don't believe that Isa was the Messiah. They believe the Messiah is yet to come, but the Jews do not believe that the Messiah will be a divine being. The Messiah's essence is other than that of God. The Messiah will be created. That's one one here with the internet connection. Okay, so to continue, we were talking about co-substantial with the Father through whom all things in heaven and earth became. So this is the Christian position that all things were created through the Word of God, through the Logos. By the way, Logos or Word of God is another way of saying the Son of God. Those two terms are interchangeable. And then he says, or they say the one, meaning the Son, who for the sake of us human beings and for the sake of our salvation came down and became flesh and dwelled in man. So here the term in antropesanta, in the Latin incarnatus est, incarnation. In obviously means in, and then carne in Latin means meat or flesh. So became flesh. So this is a Christian belief now that the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God also called the Logos, the one who was caused, that is to say begotten from the essence of the Father before time, at some point in history came down into his creation and assumed human flesh, right, as Jesus of Nazareth, as Isa alaihi salam, according to the Christians. And he says here again, the one for who the sake, for the sake of us human beings and for the sake of our salvation came down and became flesh and dwelled in man, right, suffered and rose on the third day. So the question is, why did God become a man? You know, this is a belief that obviously we would repudiate, not only us. This is a belief that Jews find absolutely blasphemous. It's very interesting that Christians believe that their theology can be grounded in the Old Testament. Of course, the term Old Testament is also Christian terminology. You know, Jews don't like the term Old Testament. It implies that their scripture is superseded or abrogated. And in fact, it is from our position. But the term that they prefer, that Jews prefer is Tanakh. And in the Tanakh, or the, we can say Hebrew Bible, you can even call it the Torah, if you want. Well, I'll call it the Tanakh. In the Tanakh, it's very, very clear in several places that God is not a man, right? Just to give you one quick reference, Numbers 2319. So the book of Numbers is in the first five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. So it's the fourth book of the Pentateuch, the fourth book of the Torah, what Jews and Christians believe was revealed to Moses, alaihi salam. There's a lot of questionable things in the Pentateuch from our perspective, Allahu alam. But Numbers 2319 is just, there's a there's a three word phrase there, lo yish eil, which is Hebrew, which means God is not a man, right? God is not a man. So this idea that this Christian idea that is laid out here in the, in the Nicene Creed, that God incarnated into human flesh is absolutely considered to be blasphemy, according to Jewish authorities, according to Jewish theology. But why did God have to do that from the Christian perspective? Well, according to the Christians, the Old Covenant, right? That the Mosaic Covenant, that if you obey God and fulfill his commandments, then he will forgive you. God in effect changed his mind and decided to go with a new covenant. And the new covenant was quite radically different than the old one. And this is something that is mentioned by Paul. So this is very important that I would say that probably the principal founder of Trinitarian Christianity is in fact Paul. Most of Christianity, as we know it, is based on the teachings and writings of Paul and not the teachings of Esa, not even the teachings of Esa, according to the four canonical gospels. So this idea of a savior man God, a dying and rising savior man God, right? This was a very prevalent belief in the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean around the time of Paul. So this is, this appears to be a motif that he incorporated in order to explain what he considered to be the message of Esa, that now we need a savior to die for our sins. And that's the only way to sort of reconcile ourselves to God. Yeah, there's a there's a good book, there's a comment here in the chat box. There's a book by Cursey Graves, and there's some historical issues with this text. It's an old text, but it's called The World 16 Crucified Saviors. And then this text he goes on to document how this idea, this motif of a dying and rising savior man God is quite common in the ancient world, right? You see it in several around the world. And what Paul did basically is that he gave it sort of a Jewish makeover. And again, Paul uses it to explain what he believes to be the Gospel. Right. So before Christianity, you had Osiris, a deity who was worshiped in Egypt, you have Adonis in Syria, you have Romulus in Rome, Zalmoxis in Thrace, Inanna in ancient Sumerian goddess, Mithras, the Persian sun god. All of these were considered savior gods. All of them were called the sons of God, not the God, but the son of God. So these religions were all sort of henotheistic, right? They believed in the multiplicity of gods, but there was sort of one major god. All of these gods underwent some sort of a passion. All of them obtained victory over death. So this idea of a dying and rising savior man God, this is not something new. This is a recycled mythos that Paul incorporates into his understanding of the Gospel, right? That the Christians say that the Christ is the son of God. This is something that they utter with their mouths in this. They but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. This is just a recycled mythos. You see, Hellenistic religion, Greco-Roman religion tended to be syncretistic. They would take elements from different religions. They would mix and match different elements. For example, the cult of Mithras, the Persian sun god, really an amalgamation of Hellenistic and Persian elements. The cult of Dionyses was an amalgamation of Hellenistic and Phoenician elements. So Paul lying Christianity is really an amalgamation of Hellenistic, Greek and Jewish beliefs, creating a new hybrid religion called Christianity, right? So certainly this idea of a of a incarnating savior man God dying for the sins of humanity. This has nothing to do with Judaism. This is held in an anathema by Jewish authorities. I mean, it's Kofor to the 10th degree, right? God becoming flesh. The Messiah was divine. He was God. And then he kills himself essentially for the sins of mankind that God can die. Very, very strange for Jews. And this is why essentially, this is essentially why most Jews in the late first century and going into the early second century, the vast, vast majority of Jews did not become a Christian. Because by that time, Pauline influence had infiltrated so many of the the church congregations around the ancient Near East that it's just impossible for a Jew to accept that another Jew was God and that God died, right? It's just impossible. It's inconceivable for a Jew to accept that. Okay. And then he continues to say they continue to say suffered and rose on a third day ascended into heaven and will come to judge the living and the dead. So here we have what's known as a reference to the Parousia, the second coming of Jesus. So here's the sort of Jewish argument. The Jews have all of these prophecies in the Hebrew Bible about what they believe to be the coming of the future Davidic King Messiah, that this Messiah will have power on the earth, that he will gather the remnant of Israel and Judah and gather them back into Palestine, that he will basically be the king of the world. He will spread knowledge to every nation. He will have earthly dominion. He will be from the seat of David and he will rebuild the temple, right? And Jesus did none of these things. So the Jewish response is, well, he can't be the Messiah, right? So the Christian response is, well, he's going to do those things, but he's going to do them in the second coming. Now, what is the Muslim position? Because the Muslims call, the Qur'an calls which means the Messiah. However, I would argue that this whole idea of a Davidic King Messiah to come at the end of time was going to rule the world. This is a fabrication in the Old Testament. All of those texts that talk about a coming future Davidic Messiah, they're either talking about Hezekiah, which was an ancient Jewish king, or another king, or their fabrications that were written during the exilic or post-exilic period that simply did not come true, which exposes them as false. But that's a different story. But just to say for now that Christians believe in the second coming of Isa, and then at the very end of this paragraph, they say, and we believe in the Holy Spirit. So they threw in the Holy Spirit at the end here. Again, this Council of Nicaea is not really dealing with the Holy Spirit at all. That's not going to come until the next Ecumenical Church Council in 381 of the Common Era. But for now in 325, the issue is who is the Son of God? And then there's a second paragraph here in the Nicene Creed that says, and those who say, and the Greek says, there was a time when he was not. So now the prototrinitarian bishops are quoting their theological opponents. Who are they? The Arians who took the position that there was a time when the Son did not exist. The Son of God did not exist. There was once when he did not exist. In other words, the Arians appeared to have said that the Son does not have essential pre-eternality, that the Son is inferior to the Father in his essence. And before being begotten, before being caused, he was not. That's also the Arian position, and that out of non-being he became. So the Trinitarians here are saying, or at least the prototrinitarians are saying that anyone who says that the Son of God came out or was caused by non-being, in other words, ex nihilo, that the Son of God was created out of nothing, that person who says that, according to the Creed, is accursed and anathematized is the actual Greek term. Anyone who says the Son of God is created, changeable or alterable, all these people, we consider to be accursed and anathematized. So in other words, they're pronouncing takfir upon those who say that the Son of God is created ex nihilo. He's created out of nothing. So that's the Nicene Creed. Now the second part here is a slight revision of the Nicene Creed. It's called the Nicio Constantinopolitan Creed that was ratified 381 of the Common Era. And if you look at that Creed here, and this was again 381, the Emperor was Theodosius, 150 Church Fathers, it's basically the same as the Nicene Creed, but they did add a few things. And so now this is the first true Trinitarian Creed right here, the Niceno Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 is the first true, because all three principles, all three persons of the Trinity now are dealt with, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. So you can see the Trinity did not crystallize into what it is today until 381 of the Common Era. That's a long time, right? So what did Christians believe in the second century? What did they believe in the first century? According to historians, as I said, the first Christians were not actually called Christians, they were Jews, but they happened to believe in the messiahship of Isaias. They were Jews, they followed the Mitzvot, the Jewish law, they worshiped in the synagogues, right? They kept the kosher laws. They were completely outwardly and inwardly Jews. The only differences that they believed that Isaias was the messiah. So we've gone from that now to 381 BCE, sorry 381 of the Common Era, where you have three persons of a Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So this Creed begins the same way as the Nicene Creed. We believe in one God, the Father, the Creator of all, the Maker of heaven and earth, and all things seen and unseen, that's the same language as Nicia. And we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the unique Son of God. They did add this thing here, the one begotten from the Father before the ages. So that's new that they modified here in the Creed of 381. The one begotten, the one generated or caused from the Father before all the ages. So here they're not saying, they're not stressing simply the pre-eternality of the Son, right? I mean, that could probably be, that was probably the Arian position. In other words, the Son of God was created before time, but He's still created. He just happens to be the first thing created. So He's pre-temporal, but that does not mean He's pre-eternal. He doesn't have a divine attribute. In other words, He still possibly could not have existed, right? The one who has pre-eternality has necessary existence, right? That's God. That's Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That would be the Father in heaven to use the Christian terminology. The Arian position appears to have been that the Son of God is pre-temporal. He's before time, but He's still created, okay? Whereas the Trinitarian position is that the Son is pre-eternal. He always existed, and He is essentially pre-eternal. So He's not a possible being. He's a necessary being. He's not from the mumkinat, as we would say in Islamic theology, that His existence is wajib wajib al wajib al wujud. He has necessary existence, and that's what they're saying here, the Church Fathers in 381, that the Son shares an essential pre-eternality with the Father, right? He's not a possible being. He's a necessary being. And then again, light from light, true God from true God. He got not made, co-substantial with the Father through whom all things became. The one for the sake of us human beings and for the sake of our salvation came down from the heavens and became flesh, so far that's the same as Nicaea. And then we have an addition, by the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, right? So that's something new. We didn't see that Nicaea by the Holy Spirit. So He became flesh by the Holy Spirit and Mary, these are sort of, you know, Jesus's quote-unquote parents, if you will. So Mary is mentioned explicitly, and of course the status of Mary, the status of Maryam, alaihi salam, keeps climbing over the ages by the time we get to the Council of Ephesus, which is the third Ecumenical Church Council after this Council of Constantinople, the Council of Ephesus held in 431. Mary is given the title of Theotokos, which is sometimes translated as mother of God, but that's not a good translation, rather the carrier or bearer of God, right? One who handles God, if you will. And then over the years, in the 20th century, Mary was given other types of statuses. The Vatican declared that Mary was immaculately conceived, she didn't have original sin, and that she was assumed into heaven, that she didn't actually die or suffer a physical death, but she was assumed body and spirit into heaven. So those are much later beliefs. Okay, continuing then. And then they say here in this updated read that he was crucified for our sake under Pontius Pilate, right? So what did we get in the Nicene Creed? We simply got the statement, what did they say here? Let me see if I can, they just say, oh, Pathantha, Pathantha, just one word, he suffered, he suffered, right, and rose on the third day. So that's a bit vague. What do you mean he suffered? How did he suffer? So here in the Niceno Constantinopolitan Creed, the bishops are much more clear, and they say that he was crucified, right, crucified here. The term here, yeah, Staurofenta, right, he was put on a Stauros, which is like a pole or a stake. It doesn't really mean cross, but that's usually how it's translated, that he's crucified for our sake under Pontius Pilate, who is Pontius Pilate, where he was the Roman governor of Judea at the time. So why do the bishops mention these details in 381? What it seems like they want to situate Jesus historically, right? They want to say that he was really crucified. It's historical, right? It's not a myth or a rumor or something like that, that he was actually crucified, and this was the Roman governor at the time, and he's a historical person. So Jesus was in fact a historical person. And then he continues and suffered and was buried. So that's something new they mentioned here in this Creed, that he was buried. It doesn't mention that the bishops don't mention that in 325 at the Nicene Creed. So what they mean to say here is that it was an actual body, right? Because you have different types of Christologies in the first three centuries that the proto-Orthodox did not find to be kosher, if you will, or acceptable. For example, there was something called literal dosatism, right? So the dosatists were a group of Christians, and there's different groups of them, that believed that something else sort of happened to Jesus at the end of his life, right? They're called the dosate, so doceo. It comes from the Greek doceo, which means to seem or to appear. We saw something in appearance, but that's not what really happened, right? They're called the literal dosatists, and this takes on many forms. One form is called dosetic gnosticism, right? So there were a group of Christians early on who believed that Issa alaihi salam didn't actually have a physical body. There was no flesh and blood Jesus, that he was a phantasm, that he was sort of a thick ghost. He appeared to people like he had a physical body, but he wasn't actually a physical body because they believed that Jesus was totally God. There was nothing human about him, and matter is something that is just, it's changeable, it's part of the earth, and it's just a low material. Matter is just low, so God cannot be matter. He just appeared to be matter. So that was the position of the dosetic gnastics, that he was a phantasm. So really, what was crucified was not a person at all, was not a body at all. It was just an illusion. There was another type of dosetic belief called dosetic substitutionism. Now, the dosetic substitutionists like Basilides, who lived in the second century, his position is that Issa alaihi salam did have a physical body, but his body was not the one crucified, that someone else was substituted in his place. This is a Christian belief that was apparently pretty widespread at the time. You can argue even before the time of the composition of the Gospel of John, which was at the end of the first century. So this is a first century Christian belief that someone else was crucified instead of Issa alaihi salam. And then you have something called dosetic separationism. So this is also an early belief that espoused this idea that Issa alaihi salam was God and man, but his divine nature was able to detangle itself from the human body of Jesus, leaving only a human body and a human person of Jesus to die on the cross, while his divine nature or divine person exited his body. So we have that famous cry of dereliction, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That's mentioned by Mark and Matthew. They say that when Jesus was on the cross, he cried out to God, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And the early dosetic separationists, they said, well, this is because the divine person of God had left, separated himself from the body of Christ. So they're emphasizing here, he was buried. There was a body that was buried. And rose on the third day according to the scriptures. That's something new also in this creed of 381. We didn't see that in the Nicene Creed, that here the Christian bishops want to tell us that this whole idea of God becoming man and dying, suffering for our sins and then resurrecting, this is something that is fulfilled. This is a fulfillment of scripture. This is the claim of the Christians. And there are different passages that the New Testament authors will cite. For example, Psalm 22, Isaiah chapter 53, which is probably the quintessential prophecy of the Christian version of Jesus, Isaiah's suffering servant that's quoted all the time. The Gospel of John quotes it. The book of Acts, who is Luke, he quotes it. Paul in Romans, he quotes it as well. So here, the church fathers are trying to tell us that this is not some foreign idea that comes from a foreign place. The idea of God becoming man and suffering and dying and resurrecting, this is an idea that is found in the scriptures they're saying. According to the scriptures is the term that they're using here. And the scriptures that they're referring to is the Hebrew Bible. So the Christians have the difficult task of trying to prove their theology through the Hebrew Bible. And I think it is quite difficult task. I'll give you an example. In the book of Leviticus chapter 3, verse 17, it says that you shall not drink blood. And this is an everlasting statute. This is a statute, a law that is never going to be canceled. Do not drink blood, right? Leviticus 3, 17. Now Christians believe that in order to properly commemorate the sacrifice of Jesus, one must participate in something called the Eucharist, which is one of the seven sacraments. What is the Eucharist? Well, this is when bread and wine are presented on the altar on Sunday. And Catholics believe that, and every Christian used to be Catholic. Now there are about a billion Catholics. I think they're the largest denomination. The Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit descends at Mass on Sunday and will transform the accidents of the wine into the literal blood of Jesus. This is literal according to the Catholics. It's not figurative. It literally becomes the blood of Jesus. Now you might say, well, it still looks and smells like wine. That's true, right? The accidents remain wine. The essence has changed. It's called transubstantiation. That's the actual term for it. The essence of the wine has become the blood of Jesus. But the accidents remain wine. So it still smells like wine. It tastes like wine. It feels like wine. But the essence is actually the blood of Jesus, right? So that's an example. I mean, how do you square that with Leviticus chapter 3? I'm out of time, actually. I don't know if we can do a little bit more. You can keep going, Inshallah, because we started a little bit late and we had the interruption. So please go ahead. Okay, Inshallah. Just let me know when you want me to make a hard stop, Inshallah. And again, if people have questions or clarifications, they can type it into the chat box or just start speaking. It's okay if you interrupt me. I don't know what's going on. I can't see anyone's faces. Usually when I give a lecture to students, I can tell if people are following me, if people are falling asleep, people are confused, but I can't see any faces. So actually, there are a few questions. Actually, I think you left the chat when you said it. Actually, is how Holy Spirit came into? What is the concept of Holy Ghost? And after the other question is what is the difference between sexuality between the Protestant and the Catholics? Okay. So the Holy Ghost, we're going to get to that now, Inshallah, because that's at the very end of the Nicaeo-Constantino-Polytine Creed in 381. So we'll get to that in a minute, Inshallah. As far as the differences between belief in the Trinity between Protestants and Catholics, there are no major differences. The Protestants accept this Creed, they accept the first seven actually ecumenical church councils, the Council of Nicaea I, Constantinople I, Ephesus after this, they accept the Council of Calcedon, they accept Constantinople II, Nicaea II, so the first seven ecumenical councils are accepted by Protestants. Okay. The differences with Protestants and Catholics, the main differences of the Protestants do not accept a lot of the church tradition that comes after the seventh ecumenical council, they don't accept the infallibility of the Pope. And there are certain other doctrines that when you get down to the sort of the theological nitty gritty about sin and the nature of sin and things like that, that there are differences as well. But when it comes to the Trinity, I can't really think of major differences between Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox, all three of these groups which make up 99.999% of Christians all around the world. I mean, there are a few Unitarian Christians as well that don't accept these creeds, but those are very, very few. All of these, all three of these groups accept these creeds. Now, regarding the Holy Spirit, they go on to say here, right, that they go on to say that, you know, Jesus, he ascended into the heavens, he's seated at the right hand of the Father, he'll come again in glory, he'll judge a living and the dead whose kingdom has no end, and we believe in the Holy Spirit. Okay, so what is the Holy Spirit? The creed says the Holy Spirit is Kurian, Lord, and Zo'apoi'an, life giver, right? So the Holy Spirit is that which gives life to all sentient beings and is the one preceding it says from the Father, right? So the Holy Spirit is also, also has this, this essential pre-eternality as the Son. All three are equal, right? And the Holy Spirit also, it goes on to say, is co-worshiped, co-glorified, and spoke to the prophets. So this is basically, basically the role of the Holy Spirit is to give the messages of God to the prophets according to this creed. So the primary duty of the Father is creation, creation out of nothing. That doesn't mean that the Son and Holy Spirit, according to Christians, don't participate in creation out of nothing. They do, but this is sort of the primary, like the Father sort of takes the lead when it comes to creation from nothing. Christians cannot say the Father created out of nothing and the Son has nothing to do with that because then they're saying that basically the Son is essentially inferior to the Father. They can't say that. They have to say that the Son somehow participates in the actions of the Father. They're inseparable in action, or else it's going to be two different consciousnesses and that's two different gods, right? So the major role of the Father is to create. The major role of the Son is redemption. The Son comes down into human flesh and dies for the sake of humanity. So that's this major role. And then the major role of the Holy Spirit is sanctification, is to bring the messages of God to human beings, right? So the Ruh Al-Qodos, the Holy Spirit, according to Christians, is the third person of the Trinity who inspires the prophets, if you will. I was raised Roman Catholic. Most Christians don't know any of this unless they're scholars. I studied because I found out Mithra was born December 25th. I accepted Islam nine years ago. Yeah, so definitely what we see with early, what we see with the Catholic Church in the third and fourth centuries, I would say, is a clear mirroring of ancient pagan beliefs. I mean, you can go back even, as I said, as early as Paul. I mean, Paul really set the trend there by accepting this Greco-Roman motif, the dying and rising savior, man-god, right? But I mean, the Vatican used to be a necropolis. It was a city of the dead. It was revered by by Roman pagans before the advent of Christianity. And so a lot of these, December 25th was the birthday of Mithra as the sun god. Constantine chose it as a birthday of Jesus because possibly he wanted to sort of facilitate the easy conversion process of pagans to Christianity. Dr. Ali, I have a question. I have two questions. So based off this kind of study of core Christian theology, is it correct to say that when we're talking to Christians and we talk to them about, religion typically has the three components, beliefs, practices and values and often they share in their values and love and generosity and all that. And they share in their practices to prayer and charity. But then in terms of the core beliefs, so the major distinctions with Christianity and Islam, obviously we believe in the Prophet Muhammad, but after that it's the identity of Jesus that we assume full humanness to him and unprofitable. And also salvation doesn't come through the sufficient salvation. It comes through like just the thought and just following the commands of Allah. So that's one question. And then my other question is, when you look at just practical Dawa with Christians, I remember one time in one of your lectures you were saying that there was a study of churchgoers and a significant portion of them couldn't even name the four Bospels. So we're kind of seeing that the level of knowledge of their own religion is a little bit lower. What have you found to be effective Dawa with Christians? Is it getting into the deep studies of theology or is it kind of, I don't know, I just wanted to talk about your experience. Yeah. So regarding the first question, I would say a major difference in our Christology is the concept of so-teriology, like how does one become saved? Now if you go to a Christian at random that's coming out of a church that knows a thing or two about Christianity, I can just connect it for a second there. So I was saying that if you go to a Christian at random and ask them about how do I get saved, they're going to invariably quote to you from Paul. So he'll say something like, in order for you to be saved, you have to believe that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, that he rose from the dead, he died for your sins, right? But if you actually go to the Gospels and read the Gospels, this question is posed directly to Isa, according to the Christian Gospels. Now the Christian Gospels obviously, they're problematic from our perspective, but it's interesting that in this text, you find it in three different places. Matthew 1818, sorry Luke 1818, Matthew 1917, Mark 1018, the good master, what must I do to gain eternal life? How do I go to heaven? This is a question posed to Isa, to Jesus, peace be upon him, according to three Gospels. And his answer is, why are you calling me good? There's no one good but one that is God. So Isa, this text doesn't even accept the title good, because good means perfect, right? One of the names of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is as-salam. And as-salam doesn't mean like the peace or something like that. As-salam comes from Salim, right? The one who was perfect. Why are you calling me good? There's no one good, but one, and that is God. So here, Isa, in this text, Mark 1018, Luke 1818, Matthew 1917, is creating a very clear distinction between himself and God. And then he says, follow the commandments and you shall enter the life, right? Follow God's commandments. What are God's commandments? God commands us to make toba, very, very important theological virtue in the Hebrew Bible as well as the Quran, right? Inna allaha yuhibbu tawabin. Allah loves the people who make toba, right? And we would say as Muslims that this is the actual teaching of Isa, it's not the teaching of Paul, it's the idea of vicarious atonement through blood magic and things like that. But if you read the Gospels even, you know, in Luke 15, you have the parable of the prodigal son, ask a Christian. You ask me like, what are some of the things that are effective in making da'wah to Christians? Well, Christians do not expect you at all to know anything about their scripture, right? Any Christian, even if they've never really studied the Bible at all, they do not expect you to know anything, right? So if you are able to, if you are able to use an example from their text, which confirms our theology, and you have to be good at this because you have to, and if the Christian is clever, he'll go to someplace else and say, well, over here, it says this and that's again that you have to have an answer for that too, right? You have to be able to deal with every scenario. So this takes practice, but ask a Christian, you know, after you ask him, you know, how do I go to heaven? The Christian will probably say something like, except Jesus is God, he died for your sins and say, well, Jesus didn't say that in three Gospels, you know, kind of stare at you with a blank look and then say, well, what does Jesus mean in Luke 15, the parable of the prodigal son? And most Christians will not know, I mean, if they're laity, I mean, they've heard, you've probably heard the expression, the prodigal son returns, right? What does that mean? What's the context? Well, Luke chapter 15, Jesus says a man has two sons, one of them stays with him, the other one goes out and he's a musterif, right? He's prodigal. He spends all his money and he and he lives a life of sin. He ends up sleeping in a pig pen. And then after some time, that son, he comes home to his father. This is mentioned in Luke chapter 15. And his father sees him from a distance and they run towards each other and they hug each other. So that's the parable. What is, what is this parable teaching? Is it teaching vicarious atonement through blood magic? Is this what he's teaching? This is a parable about toba, right? The man had two sons, this father and the word father, right? This is a hebraism. This is what the Jews used to call God, right? The Christians took this term and they made it literal, right? But it doesn't mean father in the literal sense. This is majazz. This is figurative language. It means rub. Ab means rub in the Hebrew Bible, right? Isaiah prays, adonai ata avinu, oh Lord, you are our father, meaning our rub, right? So this man has two sons, one of them obeys him. The other one disobeys him and then he comes back, right? Taba yatubu means to turn around, to reorient yourself. It's the same word in Hebrew. Tashuvah means to reorient yourself towards God. He turns around towards the father, his father, meaning the rub. So this father is sort of an analogy for God and he repents to his father and his father accepts him. This is the teaching of Risaleh Salam. It's about repentance. And then what about the second part of that question about your own pact with experience and doing dowel with Christians? Would it be found to be effective? I think just having like a dub with people and not losing your temper, people tend to remember people's attitudes and how they sort of felt at the moment of an interaction. And you might say that's good or bad, but that's usually what people remember. So I think sometimes if you're actually having a discussion with a Christian and they're getting sort of riled up a little bit, I think at that point we sort of have to make a decision. Do I really want to win this argument or do I just want to sort of show good character, right? And just be polite and just put your point across obviously. So I mean the best advice is the advice we find in the Quran. So I try to live by this, you know, call people to the way of Allah, meaning to the Dean of Islam, with wisdom and the Ulama here, the exegits, they say that this means with intellectual academic proofs, you have to know your stuff. You have to do your homework, it's not all just charisma. There's some people who can sort of schmooze their way through life because they have a lot of charisma. But when you actually get down to the nitty gritty of what they actually know, they don't know much at all. So here the Quran is saying you have to have wisdom, you have to have academic sophistication. So you have to know what your text says, you have to know how people are interpreting our text, know what their text says, you have to sort of deal with scenarios as they might come up. This is the second part. And with beautiful exhortation and the Ulama say here, the meaning of this is with a good sort of good attitude, right, with adab. People don't like that word for some reason. But you know, Jidal is with the Ahlul Kitab, it's with the Mushri Keem, right? Muslims shouldn't be debating each other because we're, if you're Sunni, the differences are negligible. They're not a big deal. Some of these discussions are just, they don't have no practical application in the world today. These old theological debates were united upon and it's incredible the miracle that happened in our tradition. We never had a single council, ecumenical council, right? Yet you have this incredible cohesiveness in our theology. Of course, there are differences, but again, they're minor, they're negligible. So debate is with Ahlul Kitab, a debate with them in ways that are good, in ways that are beautiful, right? So it's a beautiful ayah. This is ayah number one, I believe 120 of Surah An-Nahl, if I'm not mistaken. So that's what I try, that's what I find to be effective and this is something that I can testify is true. Allah SWT says it in the Quran and I found it to be true is that when you have academic sophistication and you also have good comportment, right? And those are working together because there are some people who are very, very sharp intellectually, but they have bad adab and you might destroy a Christian in a debate and just like wipe your feet on him and then this Christian will rise up and he will do some serious homework because he won't forget that humiliation. He might even dedicate his life to destroying Islam after that. And I've actually seen people like that. I've seen this happen or you might have the opposite. You might have someone again who's very charismatic or he's very humble person, right? Very good attitude, but just doesn't know anything when it comes to academics, when it comes to apologetics, when it comes to textual studies, when it comes to the language, when it comes to Sharia, when it comes to theology. And so this person will go and try to present good character and that's the extent of what he should do. Everyone should know their limitations, right? If you have good character, show good character, but don't try to engage in a theological debate with somebody and then end up losing and then that person feels emboldened because they just destroyed this Muslim in a debate. Obviously, his theology is false and obviously he couldn't answer simple things about how Jesus is God. Jesus wants to be God and things like that. So that's sort of the approach. And it's difficult sometimes. If you're dealing with very, very emotional Christians, I would just not even waste my time. I would just make do offer them. It's the kind of Christian that kind of gets a megaphone and starts shouting at you and there are people like that that come to college campuses. I wouldn't even engage with them and they're sort of trained to throw something out there and they want you to respond to something because they have this sort of response that they want everyone to hear, right? So their tactic is really one of humiliation. But Christians that are sincere and you know them or they have genuine questions, engage with them with wisdom and beautiful exhortation.