Isn't the Trinity polytheism?
The greatest sin in Islam is shirk, associating partners with God (Qur'an 4:48). God is one (tawhid); he does not beget and is not begotten (Qur'an 112). By worshiping Jesus alongside God, and speaking of 'three', Christians have made a man into a god and divided the One. The Qur'an warns them: do not say 'three' (Qur'an 4:171).
Christians are monotheists. We confess with Jesus that 'the Lord our God, the Lord is one' and reject three gods, a God who takes a wife, and the worship of any creature. The Trinity means that the one God eternally exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not that a man was promoted to divinity. Shirk adds a partner to God; the Son and Spirit are not partners alongside God but are God's own Word and Spirit, sharing his one nature.
What Scripture says
4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.
The Shema: the LORD is one. Christians affirm it without reservation.
29Jesus replied, “This is the most important: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Jesus himself quotes the Shema as the first commandment.
4So about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one. 5For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many so-called gods and lords), 6yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we exist. And there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we exist.
Paul affirms there is no God but one, then includes Jesus within that one God's identity as Lord and agent of creation.
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.
The Word was with God and was God; through him all things were made.
18No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.
The unique Son, himself God, makes the unseen Father known.
16As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. Suddenly the heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and resting on Him. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!”
At Jesus' baptism the Father speaks, the Son is baptized and the Spirit descends.
19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Disciples are baptized into one name (singular) of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The case
Shared conviction: there is only one God
Tawhid, the absolute oneness of God, is the heart of Islam. Shirk, ascribing partners to God, is the one sin the Qur'an says God will not forgive (Qur'an 4:48). Christians should respect the seriousness behind this objection, because the Bible shares it. The first of the Ten Commandments forbids other gods (Exodus 20:3). Jesus called the Shema, "the LORD is one," the greatest commandment (Mark 12:29). The apostles condemned idolatry in every form.
So the question is not whether Christians believe in one God. They do. The question is whether the Trinity is a coherent way of describing that one God, or whether it smuggles in partners.
What the Qur'an rejects, Christians reject too
Several Qur'anic passages describe beliefs that Christians also reject:
| The Qur'an rejects | Do Christians believe it? |
|---|---|
| God taking a wife and fathering a son (Qur'an 6:101) | No. "Son" is not biological. |
| Three gods; God as "the third of three" (Qur'an 5:73) | No. One God, not three. |
| Jesus and Mary as two gods besides God (Qur'an 5:116) | No. Mary is not part of the Trinity. |
| A created being raised to divine status | No. The Son is eternal and uncreated. |
Much of the disagreement dissolves once the Christian belief is stated accurately. What remains is the real question: can the one God eternally have his own Word and Spirit, distinct yet not separate from himself?
A clue from Islamic theology
Here Christians and Muslims have an unexpected conversation partner: the Qur'an itself. Sunni theology holds that the Qur'an is the speech of God (kalam Allah), eternal and uncreated. In the ninth century the caliph al-Ma'mun tried to force scholars to say the Qur'an was created, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal endured imprisonment rather than agree. Sunni theologians came to describe God's attributes, including his speech, as neither identical to God's essence nor something other than God.
Christians can ask a respectful question. If God's eternal speech can be distinct from God without being a second god, is it unthinkable that God's eternal Word could be distinct from the Father without being a second god? The Qur'an calls Jesus "a word from God" (Qur'an 3:45; 4:171). John's Gospel says the Word was with God, was God, and became flesh (John 1:1, 14). The analogy is not exact: Christians say the Word is a person, not only an attribute. But it shows that distinction within God need not mean partnership with God. John of Damascus made a similar point to Muslims as early as the eighth century (On Heresies 100).
How the Trinity is built from Scripture
Christians did not invent the Trinity by philosophy. They were forced to it by the data of Scripture:
- There is one God (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 45:5; 1 Corinthians 8:4).
- The Father is God (John 6:27; 1 Corinthians 8:6).
- The Son is God: he is called God (John 1:1; John 20:28), creates all things (Colossians 1:16), and receives worship (Hebrews 1:6).
- The Holy Spirit is God: lying to the Spirit is lying to God (Acts 5:3-4), and the Spirit is eternal and everywhere present (Psalm 139:7).
- The three are distinct: the Father sends the Son, the Son prays to the Father, the Spirit is "another" Helper (John 14:16).
Hold all five together and you have the doctrine of the Trinity: one God in three persons. Drop any one and you contradict part of Scripture.
Why it matters
The Trinity is not a puzzle for its own sake. It tells us that love is eternal in God: before creation the Father loved the Son in the Spirit (John 17:24). The God of the Bible did not need to create in order to have someone to love. And it tells us that God came near: the Son became one of us so that we could know the Father. Christians can invite Muslim friends to consider not a God with partners, but a God who is himself relational and who reaches out to us in love.
Word study
greek · “unique, one of a kind, only” · John 1:18
Older English Bibles rendered this 'only begotten', which can suggest physical generation. The word means 'one of a kind' or 'unique'; Hebrews 11:17 uses it of Isaac, though Abraham had other sons. John is not describing a biological event but the Son's unique relation to the Father, which is exactly what Qur'an 112:3 does not address.
“But what about…?”
Doesn't the Qur'an say Christians worship Jesus and Mary as two gods (Qur'an 5:116)?
If anyone worshiped Mary as a goddess, Christians would condemn it too. The historic creeds never included Mary in the Godhead; the Trinity is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christians can thank Muslim friends for rejecting a false trinity, and gently explain that it is not the one Christians believe.
One plus one plus one equals three. How can three be one?
The Trinity does not claim that one God equals three gods, or that one person equals three persons. It claims one 'what' (one divine being) and three 'whos' (three persons). That is mysterious, but not contradictory. We should expect the infinite God to be more complex than anything in creation.
How can God die on a cross, or eat and sleep?
Christians do not say the divine nature died or slept. The eternal Son took on a full human nature, and in that nature he hungered, slept and died. God did not stop being God; he added humanity to himself.
Why don't Christians just say 'God' and avoid the confusion?
Christians usually do just say 'God'. The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated because the New Testament speaks of the Father, the Son and the Spirit each doing what only God does, while insisting there is one God. It is a summary of what the Bible teaches, not a later addition to it.
Where Christians differ
Go deeper
- book · 2010The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes EverythingFred Sanders
- book · 2011Allah: A Christian ResponseMiroslav Volf
- book · 2016No God but One: Allah or Jesus?Nabeel Qureshi
- book · 2008Jesus and the God of IsraelRichard Bauckham
- ancientOn Heresies, ch. 100 (The Heresy of the Ishmaelites)John of Damascus
Sources (7)
- Qur'an 4:48: God does not forgive association (shirk)
- Qur'an 4:171, 5:73 and 5:116: the Qur'an's critiques of 'three', of God as 'third of three', and of worshiping Jesus and his mother
- Qur'an 6:101 and 112:1-4: God has no consort and neither begets nor is begotten
- Qur'an 3:45 and 4:171: Jesus as a word from God
- John of Damascus, On Heresies 100: early Christian reply that Muslims call Christians 'associators'
- The mihna (from AD 833) under the caliph al-Ma'mun over whether the Qur'an is created; Ahmad ibn Hanbal's defense of the uncreated Qur'an
- Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381)
Related questions
Wasn't Jesus just a prophet, not the Son of God?
Christians agree that Jesus was a prophet and a servant of God; the question is whether he was only that. The earliest records of his life show him forgiving sins, accepting worship, claiming to share God's glory and identifying himself with the divine 'Son of Man' of Daniel 7. 'Son of God' never meant that God took a wife; it means Jesus shares the Father's very nature. A prophet points to God. Jesus pointed to himself as the way to God.
Doesn't the Shema rule out Jesus being God?
Christians affirm the Shema completely. Jesus called it the first commandment, and the apostles never stopped confessing that there is one God. The question is what kind of oneness the Shema teaches. The Hebrew Scriptures themselves speak of the LORD appearing in human form, of a divine figure beside God, and of God's Word and Spirit acting as God. Early Jewish followers of Jesus did not abandon the Shema; they found Jesus within it.
Hasn't the Bible been corrupted?
The Qur'an itself speaks of the Torah and Gospel as guidance and light, tells Christians in Muhammad's day to judge by what God revealed in the Gospel, and invites anyone in doubt to ask those who read the earlier scripture. That assumes the Bible available in the seventh century was trustworthy. We possess thousands of biblical manuscripts from before Muhammad, and they teach the same message we read today: Jesus' death, resurrection and divine sonship.
Isn't the Trinity a logical contradiction?
A contradiction says something is both one and three in the same sense at the same time. The Trinity does not. It says God is one in being (one 'what') and three in person (three 'whos'). That is a mystery that stretches our minds, but it is not nonsense. And it is not a philosopher's invention: it is what you get when you take seriously both the Bible's insistence that there is only one God and its treatment of the Son and the Spirit as truly divine.
This entry is a draft and has not yet been theologically reviewed.