Commenting
on the Qur’an’s (mis)understanding of the Trinity, Hans Küng wrote:
In seven-century
Islam the doctrine of the Trinity was brought into the centre of criticism.
This criticism is formulated harshly in the Qur’an: ‘O followers of the Gospel!
Do not overstep the bounds [of truth] in your religious beliefs, and do not say
of God anything but the truth. The Christ Jesus, son of Mary, was but God’s
Apostle—[the fulflment of] His promise which He had conveyed unto Mary—and a
soul created by Him. Believe, then, in God and His apostles, and do not say “[God
is] a trinity.” Desist [from this assertion]. God is but one God’ (Surah 4.171;
cf. 5.72f). However, in the Quran, we sometimes
find as the Christian Trinity not the Trinity of God the Father, Son, and
Spirit but the Trinity of God the Father, Mary mother of God and Jesus son of
God. (Hans Küng, Islam: Pat, Present
and Future [trans. John Bowden; Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007], 505,
emphasis added. Note that the Arabic word, contra is not
“trinity” or “triad” but “three”)
Commenting on Surah 4.171, we read the following in the Study Quran
Christians who call
God "Three" are more seriously criticized, but this verse is embedded
in a larger discussion that seems to be addressing those Christians who took
not only Jesus, but also his mother, Mary, to be divine (see 5:73c). In both
the present verse and 5:73, however, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity as
three "persons," or "hypostates, "within" the One God
is not explicitly referenced, and the criticism seems directed at those who
assert the existence of three distinct "gods," an idea that Christians
themselves reject. (The Study Quran: A
New Translation and Commentary [New York: HarperOne], page 447 of 1998,
location 14516 of 90397 kindle ed.)
God, who is
the supposed author of the Qur’an, is ignorant of the Trinity. Say what you
will about the doctrine, regardless of whether it is true, God knows what the
doctrine is (and, to be blunt, my arguments against Trinitarianism on this blog
are much better than that of the Qur’an—I actually understand the Trinity, to
begin with).
