Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah · 2. God in Islam
Beliefs should stem from revelation, not speculation
In short
- 1.No creedal formula about God's inner nature is found on the lips of Jesus (PBUH) in any Gospel.
- 2.The was assembled over three centuries of debate, exile and imperial arbitration.
- 3.The Qur'an criticises exactly this: following conjecture (zann) where certainty is required.
- 4.In Islam, belief about God is closed at revelation — no council may add to it.
The claim being examined
Core Christian doctrines are defended as the fruit of the Church's Spirit-led reflection over centuries.
The Islamic position
Islam holds that what we may believe about God must come from God: doctrine derived by inference and councils is human speculation dressed as revelation.
Analysis
Ask how a belief was arrived at before you argue about the belief itself. If the test for a belief about God is that a community reached it after long reflection, then the belief is only as sound as that community's process — and the fourth century shows a process shaped by politics as much as by piety. Islam's test is deliberately narrower: what God said about Himself, carried down intact, is the whole of the .
From the Qur'an
وَمَا يَتَّبِعُ أَكْثَرُهُمْ إِلَّا ظَنًّا ۚ إِنَّ ٱلظَّنَّ لَا يُغْنِى مِنَ ٱلْحَقِّ شَيْـًٔا ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌۢ بِمَا يَفْعَلُونَ
wamā yattabiʿu aktharuhum illā ẓannan inna l-ẓana lā yugh'nī mina l-ḥaqi shayan inna l-laha ʿalīmun bimā yafʿalūna
Most of them follow nothing but conjecture, and conjecture avails nothing against the truth.
وَلَا تَقْفُ مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ بِهِۦ عِلْمٌ ۚ
walā taqfu mā laysa laka bihi ʿil'mun
Do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge.
Sources
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