Christians should be hesitant to agree with the Islamic concept of God’s unity. Yes, God is one. But plurality of persons is not evil, nor is it ontologically impossible. In defense of the Christian Trinity, theologians Demarest and Lewis assert, “Only a substantial and essential oneness fits the scriptural data denying polytheism and affirming monotheism. The divine unity revealed in Scripture is not like a mystical Neo-Platonic ‘One’ beyond all categories of thought. The biblical oneness does not rule out distinguishable attributes and persons.”

The possibility of God existing as three persons with one essence should not be ruled out simply because of conjectures purported by medieval Greek philosophy. The orthodox Christian view of God’s being is not based in the ideas of an ancient philosophical tradition, but in God’s revealed Word (2 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 4:12). And while Muslims may find the doctrine of the Trinity troubling, the Islamic formulation of God’s being is wrought with tremendous philosophical complications.

Such is the Islamic commitment to God’s oneness that some Muslim scholars are hesitant to acknowledge that Allah can know himself, even as a singular being.⁸ According to the Neo-Platonic metaphysics adopted by Islam, self-knowledge requires an intolerable plurality between the knower and that which is known.⁹

Similar unwelcome plurality exists whenever distinctions are made between God’s volition, His essence, His moral character, and His unchanging eternal revelation. Rather than risk accommodating divine plurality, both Islamic theologians and Neo-Platonists deny that God has a knowable essence, opting instead for the idea that He exists as pure will.¹⁰ Under this interpretation, Allah’s ability to love is hindered by his lack of an intrinsic nature. His love is dependent on his volition. He cannot love until he creates an object of love, and even then, his love is based not on his character, but on his will to love his creatures.

The Christian God, however, is not limited in this way. The Trinity’s plurality within oneness allows for interpersonal love as each person of the Godhead loves the others and is loved in return.

Jonah Haddad and Douglas Groothuis

http://www.equip.org/article/allah-the-trinity-and-divine-love/#christian-books-2
‪#‎Apologetics‬