“Say Not Three”: Some Early Christian Responses to Muslim Questions about the Trinity

The Thomist74 (2010): 85-104 "SAY NOT THREE": SOME EARLY CHRISTIAN RESPONSES TO MUSLIM QUESTIONS ABOUT THE TRINITY SANDRA TOENIES KEATING Providence College Providence, Rhode Island IN OCTOBER 2007, a group of Muslim intellectuals, scholars, and clerics issued a statement that has come to be known as A Common Word between Us and You. The title comes from a phrase from the Qur'an exhorting Christians and Muslims to find agreement in their worship of the one God. According to the official website of the group who formulated and endorsed the statement, it was written in direct response to Pope Benedict XVI's address to the faculty at the University of Regensburg in September of the previous year, and is the result of Muslims who have "unanimously come together for the first time since the days of the Prophet r[sic] to declare the common ground between Christianity and Islam."1 This is a very bold statement, and may signal the beginning of a new era in relations between Muslims and Christians. But what exactly is new about this endeavor, and how ought Christian theologians to respond to it? It is true that such a joint effort of this kind among Muslims is revolutionary and may ultimately serve the same purpose in articulating traditional views in contemporary language for like-minded Muslims that Nostra Aetate has for Roman Catholics. For this its drafters are to be highly commended. It has taken great courage to make this public statement at a time when the Islamic ummah is roiled by internal 1 "Introduction to 'A Common Word between Us and You,"' the official website of A Common Word (http://www.acommonword.com), accessed 14 May 2010. 85 86 SANDRA TOENIES KEATING divisions and large parts of it are deeply suspicious of what it perceives as the Christian West. From the longer perspective of history, the initiative itself is unique, and the drafters of the text have taken full advantage of modern technology to spread their message, making it possible that it will influence Muslims worldwide. What is not new is the content of the statement. A careful reading of the text reveals that it very closely follows the approach past Muslim apologists have taken, namely, it emphasizes the call to a common understanding between Muslims and Christians based on what is similar between the Qur'iin and the Holy Bible, while clearly rejecting the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation. It seeks to formulate concord upon a common monotheism while calling upon Christians to reject their own "heretical" distortion of that monotheism. In particular, the Common Word statement stresses that Christians and Muslims agree that central to their religions is love of God and love of neighbor, and that this is expressed in worship of the one God. Indeed, this crucial doctrine can provide a firm foundation upon which to build a more stable and peaceful society. In support, the Common Word quotes a key passage from the Qur'iin, found in Siira 3 (Al-clmriin):64: Say: "O People of the Scripture! Come to a common word between us and you: worshipping only God, and not associating any partners with Him, and not taking one another as lords apart from God." And if they turn away, then say: "Bear witness that we are the ones who have surrendered (to God)."2 The Muslim confession of belief in one God, in Arabic tawhid, is identified here as a common point of agreement between Muslims and Christians. In this verse, tawhid is defined as a monotheism that does not allow any other being to be associated with God,3 nor to be addressed as "lord"; that is, it prohibits giving to anyone 2 Translations of the Qur'an, unless otherwise noted, are mine. This verse is quoted in A Common Word, 13-14. 3 This also forms the basis for the Islamic rejection of any notion that human beings are made in the image of God, a teaching that has important theological and practical implications. See, for example, the work of David Burrell, Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), especially 128-39 on...