Just read the review and walk on with a smile
Personally I doubt Inamullah Mumtaz is a 'sheikh' and I doubt Jonathan McLatchie has finished his PhD either. I doubt these titles were added to these chaps at their behest. ABN/Trinity channel seems to have an inferiority complex. CALM DOWN...people will still watch even if you introduce your guests as who they ACTUALLY are. Again, I can only think they are being influenced by their low-opinion of their audience (to be honest, I think their audience does carry a number of unsophisticated types as attested by some of the callers I've had the displeasure of listening to over the years - oh and while we are at it some of the guests too, yes you are one of them Usama Dakdok) . They also pulled this stunt with Ijaz Ahmad, they made him an 'imam'. They've done it to Jonathan before too.
Oh and as if a fella having a PhD in a science subject and somebody who is a qualified scholar in Islam is going to lend more credibility to a debate largely based on the New Testament text. THINK!!!
Stop this small man complex. It's not clever. It's insulting to the audience. It's dishonest too.
Bassim and Samar Goriel, sort it out!
Debate Review
Jonathan McLatchie's two-fold argument:
-Sayings in the NT which attest to Jesus being deity
-Disciples believed Jesus claimed to be divine
One of the problems in debates of this nature is folks taking the text in the NT as authoritative. How many people do not question the validity and authority of the text they are using in the debate and thus end up offering a one-dimensional debate?
Somebody should have just thrown their hands up in the air and said we are using texts adulterated and/or produced by a bunch of liars, ignoramuses and unauthorized folk. Why even bother trying to prove anything from this set of texts, these texts should not play a role in anybody's theology never mind people entrusting their salvation on these texts...
...and then stormed off!
Nobody did that [surprised??] so let's look at some of the points proffered
A contrived argument from Matthew 11 and Malachi 3
Jonathan put these two together to claim John the Baptist was sent to pave the way for God. Nothing to see here folks, if John the Baptist really thought Jesus was God, then he would have told his followers to leave him and follow Jesus p (as put by Zakir......... Hussain)
Jonathan to his credit appears to recognise the material in these books is of varying reliability so he offers an argument propping up the reliability of Matthew 11. Has Jonathan thought, both Matthew and Luke were copying off another liar (seems as though a ton of them were operating around the NT) or somebody who just passed on unverified material?
The peril of not knowing who you're getting your material from! Jonathan would not cite a research paper whose author could not be verified in an academic setting so why the double standard here? Having said that, even if Matthew 11 was reliable, as shown earlier it does not teach Jesus was divine - John the Baptist did not think Jesus was divine..
I' already getting tired and grouchy. I have the rest of Jonathan's OS to go through and Inamullah Mumtaz's material. Who'd want to be me right now :(
OK, I skipped some, Jonathan is now talking about the Son of Man title. Did he learn anything from Shabir Ally? Here's a video on the Son of Man, there's a clip in there of Shabir going through various interpretations of that title - I believe in front of Jonathan (COME ON Jonathan it's been explained!!!). Watch it...trust me, it's an easier watch than this debate :)
Fair play to Jonathan, he again demonstrates he is aware of the problems concerning the reliability of texts from the 'Gospels' (yes, it's plural, they have FOUR, 4, Arba3, Vier,) thus he argues for the authenticity of this alleged self-attribution by Jesus p.
Yiiikes! Jonathan's mentioning Psalm 110. The moment you realise you don't have a video to link to
:( I haven't looked into this so will leave it. I may do a post/video on it in the future...send any useful material to my email, thx.
Let's just skip to stuff related to Jonathan's second point...
He hasn't left much time for his second argument, he must have thought his first one warranted the bulk of the time or perhaps he thinks this second one is the weaker of the two...???
Uh, Jesus' disciples confirmed his deity??? Or did he say affirmed? Either way, same difference!
That's not true.I have video to go with that assertion! Here's a Blue Peter number, did the disciples think Jesus was God. In this video you can quickly learn Mary (Jesus' mother pbut), the disciples and John the Baptist did not think he was God. Tip, if you watched the first link...it's the same one ;)
Hold on he's talking about the Quran. ears prick up. Time to get more serious. (by the way Jonathan, you do realise words like 'antithesis' and 'contention' are just going to flyyyyy over a lot of these folks' heads. COME ONE you've heard some of the callers on that show, a few Christian Prince types knocking about who are from Eastern Christian communities with a tribal hatred of Muslims - imagine! Save your big words for another time.)
Jonathan mate, your accent is not foreign to me but fella slooooooow it down. You're not in a race with Usain Bolt. That stuff about Paul etc was just a blur. I'm not going to bother going back. As for Paul, I think this will be of interest as according to this he believes he only has one God, the Father:
yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. [1 Cor 8:6]
I'm really rushing through my homework now. Somebody slap me on the wrist. I've reached the half way line. Bring on Inamullah Mumtaz from the QDCI!!!
I skipped and heard Inamullah say they can never prove Jesus is God. Great. Bravo.10/10!
Ooh, Inamullah wasn't impressed by Jonathan Mclatchie's OS, it's all interpretation and philosophy according to him. Zoooming forward.
Inamullah: If Jesus was God, he would say so. Inamullah repeats this throughout his bits I've looked at as of now - he really wants to drive this message home to the Eastern Christians who have a tribal hatred of Muslims. May I add, I'm not entirely sure they will understand Inamullah either...the accent may be a hurdle for that crowd. Good thing I'm writing my lazy review!!!
He also mentions the Shema. OK, fair point but it's all kind of overlooking this Trinitarian's stance. Trinitarians will say they agree with the Shema and the trinity idea was revealed in the 'inter-testamental period'.
Chromosomes? Chimps and Humans? 46 and 48?
OK, I'm going to skip this but his argument is you're either man or God. You cannot be both. But Inamullah, these folks believe in the incarnation and hypostatic union ideas. Youre better off if you discuss these, fella. Touch on them at least. Next time, show these ideas to be ideas from church tradition rather than ideas based on Sola Scriptura and/or authoritative teachings.
I don't think saying their beliefs are pantheism is accurate. It's a bit of a difficult one to put it in a box, maybe pagan-like elements? I mean, Jonathan believes a man who wrestled with Jacob in the Old Testament is God and Trinitarians believe a dove in the NT was God as well as a man in the NT being God. Getting tired now, oh yeah some of them also believe an angel in the OT was God too.
It's weird but really, how can they say with confidence that they don't believe a man down the road is not God or a bird flying over head is not God based on their theology? They've set the precedent and others still, yes you Jonathan, push the envelope further in insisting an angel and/or man in the OT was God incarnate too.
Just out of interest, how would a Trinitarian such as Jonathan McLatchie go about proving a man in 2016 is not God incarnate?
For the Muslims, we know God is not a man and God is like no other.We have no problem in rejecting that idea outright as absurd. Same with the Jews. Whilst the Trinitarians have already gone beyond the limit and announced a bird, a man and an angel were God at some stage.
So how can they confidently declare a man walking down the street is not God? A bird in the sky is not God?
They made their bed with the incarnaton idea/s and now they are laying in it whilst Muslims and Jews are trying to wake them up.
Their basic theology is a mess. It's a mess because it's false.
OK, I'm not bothering with the rest. I'm out. Hurray!
Right kids, this is how to do this debate.
Whack on a recording of Shabir Ally or Zakir Hussain or IJAZ AHMAD :) and then walk off
OR if you want to do it yourself start off with some verses from their text showing Jesus was not God.
Find some text from the OT showing God is not a man.
And then build from there, perhaps start talking about the lack of reliability of these texts and talk about the ideas of the trinity and incarnation being ideas read into the text rather than being a product of pure exegesis thus showing these are ideas from church tradition.
OR if you really want to do something radical...try that huge chunk highlighted in yellow at the beginning of this review, go on you know you want to...
Night, night. Looking forward to the big match tomoz...LIVERPOOL against Man United.
Nota Bene one more thing, to Jonathan and Trinitarians out there. Look into matters deeper. Please. I know I'm playing around in this review but there's a serious undertone to this. Let me get deadly serious here, why believe a man is God? I know why you folks do it, it's because you're emotionally attached to the vicarious atonement idea. Look, God does not need to send anybody to die for your sins or anybody else's sins. Sure, we all have done horrible things that we would not even dare admit to our colleagues, friends, wives and children...but God does not think like a human being. Whereas a human may hold some grudge against us and drag up something he/she said they had forgiven us for years after the event....God is not like that. He can forgive us no matter what we did and we remain forgiven...sincere repentance is required.
To believe God needs to have a 'son' to die for our sins is beyond a primitive understanding of God. It's a transgression. In fact, a rabbi I listen to likens it to the pagan practices of sacrificing virgins (who represented purity, innocence). Move beyond these ideas.
We must all strive to love God with all our might and heart. This cannot be achieved if one is dividing their love by wrongly loving a man as God.
Jesus never taught this idea. Rummaging around in the NT texts and playing games of chess with your theology and salvation is not the way any of us should behave. A quote comes into mind from a James Dunn book I'm going through, he's quoting Philo who comments on the first commandment:
Let us, then, engrave deep in our hearts this as the first and most sacred commandments, to acknowledge and honour one God who is above all, and let the idea that gods are many never even reach the ears of the man whose rule of life is to seek for the truth in purity and guilelessness.
Please think about these this. PLEASE.
Jonathan McLatchie section
Unitarian Christians and Muslims having dreams which show Jesus (p) not to be God
[QURAN MIRACLES] The Miracles of the Number 19 in Quran | Dr. Shabir Ally