Is the Christian Trinity Coherent? Mohammed Hijab and William Lane Craig debate review

When I was Muslim, I never understood how the Christian doctrine of the Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) as one God made sense to Christians. How could one be three and three be one?


I'm no fan of Hijab, and yet, I find myself agreeing with him at times in his criticisms of Christian doctrine (cue Christian YouTube commenters accusing me of being a secret Muslim), and I'm curious to see how he tackles the Trinity. I only wish he would have the same intellectual rigor and honesty when looking at Islam...

I'll be joined in this live watchalong by friend of the channel @ApostateAladdin and I hope you can join us in the live chat!

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TIMESTAMPS:

0:00-8:44 Intro
8:44-12:49 Recap of first 15 minutes of the debate
12:49-19:50 Hijab's first accusation against Craig
19:50-24:05 Craig sort of agrees with Islam?
24:05-34:05 Hijab repeats accusation against Craig
34:05-35:12 Islam comes up again (it's irrelevant)
35:12-44:04 Hijab asks debate's first good question
44:04-54:11 The Cerberus (three-headed dog) analogy
54:11-1:05:55 The Candle analogy
1:05:55-1:11:25 Hijab misunderstands Craig
1:11:25 -1:14:35 Craig keeps bringing up Islam
1:14:35-1:19:42 Craig preaches in his closing remarks?!
1:19:42-1:21:05 Hijab plugs his institute
1:21:05-1:31:38 Closing thoughts & answering Qs

SOCIAL MEDIA:

[SecularSpirit]

I think my favourite discovery of this entire debate is Muhammad Hijab's rhetorical cackle (never noticed it before): 58:52

[HassanRadwan]

A great many Christian scholars - including Aquinas - agree that the Trinity cannot be known nor demonstrated by reason alone and is a mystery that one must accept on faith. So judging by reason and logic alone, it's fair to say the concept of the Trinity is incoherent. On this point, I agree with MH. (That doesn't mean Islam is true of course.)

[ekkiazure]

I'm glad to see the two of you being active again. I've noticed a drop in activity in both of your channels as of late and was wondering why, so it's a special treat to get a joint live.

[momo]

I find Mohammad Hijab obnoxious with his aggressive speaking. There are lots of irrational things which are taken on faith in every religion, including Islam. Many of the 100 names/attributes of Allah are polar opposites.

[ultrasignificantfootnote]

MH says two subjects responsable for the same thing is impossible but Mohammed, Jibreel and Allah are all responsable for producing the Quran, or not ?

[jakedark]

Wow are you guys seriously impressed by Mohammed Hijab arguments? People aren't getting any smarter...

[TheHebrewCafe]

“The Father is God.
“The Son is God.
“Therefore, the Father is the Son.”
This is the fallacy of the undistributed middle term.

[jakedark]

There are no two mothers. If you want to see Mary as a mother, fine. But the Holy Spirit is not a mother. The Holy Spirit guides, inspires and encourages the hearts of those who are open to letting God into their hearts. Jesus could be seen as a son, but is a way that God has chosen to manifest himself in flesh and blood on earth. So the Holy Trinity is a way that God has chosen to communicate with man. I don’t find this at all inconsistent or strange. Three is one, anything Hijab comes up with just shows that he can’t even understand something so simple. It’s not 3 that is responsible for one thing, it’s one God who chooses to communicate in a certain way.

[justinLoliver]

Regarding the Trinity, it's because God is an absolutely simple being of pure act that he has real relations with the same essence. For example, in the act of perfectly knowing himself, God is simultaneously the knower (the father), the object being known (the son), and the act of knowing (holy spirit) that unites both. This fits with Jesus as the Word or Logos, the perfect intellectual expression that proceeds from the father. To love, God is simultaneously the lover, the object of love, and the act of love.

[Nox-mbiu]

The reason why WLG talked about tawhid is because you encounter similar problems to the Trinity where you have 99 attributes that are all eternal, distinct from each other and allah and yet there is one God. It's not exactly avoidable in a debate where the other guy shouts that you agree with the quran.

[XANDER_REED]

As a Christian i did enjoy your livestream. Alot calmer you can actually think about things. Alladin asked a Question. Why must their be three. I think Anthony Rogers may be a good person to answer this but i may be able to help a little. 1. God is known as Love and also eternal and spending eternity alone before creation would leave God without anyone to love and we know that love is not just a word it's an act. It says the father loves the Son and all things were created through him and for him. 2. All 3 persons has a role the father being the God head resides in heaven and is the authority. The Son being the first born and heir to the throne( Just as a Human Prince is not Less Royal than his father but a King in the making. God is Eternal yet through the sacrifice all things were given to Jesus by the Father) and the Holy Spirit which Christian believes dwells within them is omnipresent as you expect a Spirit to be and also allows God to be with man and dwell inside of man.
3. We don't expect the most incredible being to be nothing less than complex we don't expect a single cell organism.In hebrew it Says the Lord is Echad which means Unity. You would expect and all powerful being to be extremely complex yet in monotheism this complexity is one whearas the Pagans divide it and have a different God for everything to the point Hindus are in the millions. Strangely tawheed also means unification.

[debras]

Secular Spirit, at 3:30 you’re overlooking one possibility—that CHRISTIANS didn’t come up with the Trinity idea, but that it’s Who GOD is and revealed Himself to be!

[truthmatters]

Hijab failed to demonstrate incoherence, but instead emphasized disagreement among Christians, which was not relevant to the topic of the debate. Rhetorically it can appear strong to accuse WLC of "rejecting the majority of Christianity", but the logical coherence of the Trinity does not stand or fall with popularity. An incorrect understanding may well be incoherent, but again this does not demonstrate that the Trinity itself is incoherent, even if it is a popular misunderstanding, because the incoherence is introduced by a mistaken definition.

WLC demonstrated that there are plausible answers to all of the questions that Hijab raised, and whether Hijab is personally convinced of those does not affect whether the Trinity is logically coherent. Far from WLC needing to prove that the answers he gave to Hijab are necessarily true as a condition for demonstrating coherence, it was Hijab's job to demonstrate why his answers are necessarily impossible, which Hijab failed to do. As such the plausibility of WLC's answers stands and is enough to demonstrate that the Trinity is in fact logically coherent.

[junkim]

Secular spirit do you deny that there is no such thing as multiple causes creating a single effect? I do take you and Alladin's point of why there are such redundancies but does this really have anything to do with whether Craig's arguments are logically coherent or incoherent? Isn't this debate about defending the logical worldview of the doctrine of the trinity not to prove it? You can correct me if I am wrong.

[TheHebrewCafe]

The word is not Nicean, but Nicene (rhymes with “I’ve seen”).

[chr_my]

Cerberus, candles, how to light them properly and how not to, who can pump 100 kg by himself and who can't - these guys covered it all. 🤣
If Allah is one and has no partners and the greatest sin is to associate anyone with Allah but ONLY Muhammad can tell you what that Allah wants, he got you under his full control. That is why this became such an important issue back then (Muhammad needed it, it's NOT the greatest sin to think that God has a son or three daughters or whatever, there are greater ones), plus now Christianity is the main problem for Islam so they think this is one good way to undermine it. In my view it's not that hard to understand or accept the Trinity but I have no issue with Unitarians (or agnostics and atheists for that matter).
In the article “If there is a God, then anything is permitted”: On Dostoevsky, freedom, and religious violence (in the last part, The heavy burden of freedom), Zizek points out why this is important and the difference between Jews and Muslims, and Christians.

[halfwaydead]

I find it funny how hijab picked someone who doesn't represent mainstream trinitarian theology and proceeded to argue he didn't...(also WLC also supports heresy ie. monothelitism)

[jakedark]

The existence of a God is logically impossible. But suppose that perfection can arise from imperfection, and therefore a God arises who is perfect. Then everything that God would want to do is logically possible, including the Holy Trinity. Mohammed Hijab is just playing with words and saying nothing sensible. He copied that well from other people who use philosophy to wrap nonsense in so-called logic that has nothing to do with reality. As an atheist I have to admit that these are often atheists too. Maybe people who believe in perfection should ask themselves something very simple. Why would something that is perfect do anything? It doesn't have to do anything, it's already perfect...

[HITMANPegas]

@46:00 Maybe his deity learned Kage Bunshin no Jutsu? You don't know him.

[HITMANPegas]

@45:00 Maybe their deity put points in parallel thinking and now has triallel thinking.