Excellent questions about Trinity from "Ghostwriter" to Christians:

The following is an email I received from "Ghostwriter"; may Allah Almighty further Guide him to the Truth of Islam.

Note: "PBUH!" means "peace be upon him", which is something Muslims always say after a Prophet's name.

From: Ghostwriter
To: truthspeaks@answering-christianity.com
Subj: Letter from a Christian who agrees with you and cites with gratitude Quran 2:62
Date: 1/18/2003 6:48:58 PM Eastern Standard Time

*Thank you* for all your excellent work on the web site. Those of us who followed Jesus (PBUH!) first and then came upon the Noble Quran know that there is one great religion, and that Jesus (PBUH!) and Muhammad (PBUH!) were both messengers of that religion.

Questions and observations I have for fellow Christians who have not yet actually read the Noble Quran include the following. Perhaps you could post them on your site.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN HE WHOM THE APOSTLES FOLLOWED:

1- Where, specifically, in the Gospel does Jesus (PBUH!) mention the Trinity?

(If you find no such reference from his lips to a god residing in three persons -- and you will not -- then perhaps you will be moved to consider the following questions

2- How could Jesus (PBUH!) possibly have omitted to mention something of such extraordinary importance?

* How could the authors of the four Gospels have made the same extraordinary omission?

(For no direct reference to the Trinity appears in any chapter or verse of any of the four Gospels. It is a patching-on from a later era.)

3- Why does Jesus (PBUH!) in the Lord's prayer address the Lord as "Father" and then refer to the Father's children throughout as "Us" and "We," instead of separating himself from the rest of the children of God, as the Trinity would seem to demand?

4- (And here, brothers and sisters, is the big question, the question that takes no small degree of courage to address honestly If redemption through the blood of Christ, that one member of the Trinity, is all that is necessary for salvation, how are we to explain the many, many occasions in the Gospel that Jesus (PBUH!) details the necessity of submitting directly to the One God -- without ever mentioning the role of his (Jesus', PBUH!) redeeming blood?

Brothers and sisters: Are these not extraordinary teachings? Are they not central to the ministry of Jesus (PBUH!)? And must we not confront dozens of them in order to defend the Trinity and the notion of the sacrificial Christ?



I am thinking, specifically, of:

1. His instruction to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind." (Matthew 22:27.) -- Jesus [PBUH!] identifies this submission to the One God as the *supreme* commandment, and yet for some reason he makes no mention within it of the sacrificial Christ or to one god in three persons, which are supposedly central to his ministry! Quite an oversight! Or are we to assume that Jesus [PBUH!] never actually uttered these words about the supreme commandment?

2. His parable of the Prodigal Son. This contains no reference whatsoever to the sacrificial Christ, or to any intermediary whatsoever for salvation. And the parable certainly makes no reference to the repentant son returning from his sinful journey to a father who takes the form of three persons. He returns to ONE father, not three. Surely we must either conclude that this, the most celebrated of the parables, has nothing to do with the Trinity or with the notion of a sacrificial Christ -- or, if we wish to retain the Trinity and the notion of a sacrificial Christ, we must conclude that this is not an authentic teaching of Jesus [PBUH!]. Brothers and sisters, fellow Christians -- which is it to be?

3. His instruction to become as children (humble, trusting, submitting to the Lord) in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. (See Matthew 18:3.) There is no mention here of the sacrificial Christ as necessary to this entry to the Kingdom, and certainly no mention of one god in three persons! Again: Are we to believe that this is not an authentic teaching of Jesus [PBUH!]? We must assume such a position if we wish to support the Trinity and the notion of a sacrificial Christ.

4. His insistence on the importance of the individual's development of personal faith, without intermediaries, in the One God. This, my brothers and sisters, is Islam! If that word frightens us, or if we wish to make ourselves feel more comfortable with the actual content of this divine ministry, sidestepping for the moment its verbal labels, we may call it "Jesus' ministry" or "Jesus' teachings." (PBUH!) But his ministry is manifestly one of submission to the One God, and we must think long and hard about the consequences of rejecting it in its true form. There are dozens of examples of such Gospel teachings about the development of STRONG individual faith WITHOUT INTERMEDIARIES, among them Matthew 6:23, 7:7, 17:20, Mark 11:23, Luke 9: 61-62, Luke 15:8, etc. etc. -- and yet there is no mention in any of these or the many other such passages of the sacrificial Christ or of one god in three persons! Is not this a remarkable fact? How are we to account for it?

Brothers and sisters, I ask you as one who has closely studied the Gospel of Jesus (PBUH!) for thirty years: What kind of faith can we claim to be developing through the religion that bears this man's name, if such faith is at variance with what he actually taught? Why, in other words, did Jesus (PBUH!) bother to teach his followers -- you and I, brothers and sisters -- of the growth of the mustard seed, of the woman who seeks for the ten silver pieces, of the impossibility of being fit for the Kingdom of God for one who sets his hand to the plough and then keeps looking back -- why did he pronounce all these extraordinary exhortations to PERSONAL, UNMEDIATED faith in the One God, if all of them are to be superseded by his own unique personal role as a member of the Trinity and his personal blood-sacrifice for a sinful humanity? Again, we must choose whether we are to accept the Trinity and the notion of a sacrificial Christ, or we must choose to accepts the teachings of Jesus (PBUH!) concerning personal faith in the One God.

It is not a difficult choice, brothers and sisters.

There are, we would all agree, many corruptions in the New Testament. There are many points where the various texts contradict themselves or send strange messages patched on in later years. Yet if we read the texts carefully, we can identify those portions of the text that illuminate Jesus' actual ministry on earth. It is clearly a ministry that preaches submission to the One God.

Brothers and sisters -- seek carefully out the words of the man we have for so long called the Lord, and remember his words to us: "Why do you say Lord, Lord, and not do what I say?"

This is an excellent question!

Ghostwriter