Wednesday, September 05, 2007

We...are born without sin

From an Islamic Website. Gives a good example of Islamic apologetics which is to simply say, you are wrong and that's that. There is no appeal to history or to our religious sources (the Gospels). Nor is there any discussion of what sin is, and without that there is no ability to discuss forgiveness and what that might mean. I have not corrected the grammatical mistakes:

Q. Jesus sacrificed himself to save mankind and deliver us from the sin, why did not Muhammad do so?

A. You did not study history enough and you did not know unfortunately what happened to Jesus, peace be upon him. Jesus, peace be upon him, did not sacrifice his life for our sins. And if it were to be true, Jesus would have been sent by God as the first child of Adam to save our sins. We human beings are born without sin, pure. Again, Jesus, peace be upon him, was not crucified. Go back and find who the one crucified was. If you don’t know, we will tell you. Jesus in as much as God brought was a hypocrite whose name was Juda, became his look like and then people crucified him thinking he was Jesus.

6 comments:

Craig Fletcher said...

This is what I call a "Just So" argument. It is so, well just because it is so.

Let us reason together, let us examine the evidence for the resurrection as a historical occurence in space and time and then let us determine whether or not we believe that Jesus Christ was actually crucified and resurrected from the dead.

If you are serious about this, and not intellectually and spiritually lazy, you will find that these events DID occur objectively in history... whether or not a person is happy about this is unrelated to whether or not it actually did happen.

Jesus, God Incarnate, was crucified for our sins, and he did rise from the dead. I would be happy to post arguments supporting this view in a future post if anyone is interested?

Abu Daoud said...

I agree with you Fletcher, of course. I think there is a substantial historical argument to be had. But remember that no amount of evidence can overcome a promise straight from the mouth of God!

I include this sort of thing on the blog not to frustrate non-Muslims, but to show them what Islamic thinking looks like. This sort of idea is what you face every day when you live with Muslims and you share the Gospel with them.

SocietyVs said...

Are we born with sin? I don't think so. We are born with the option to 'sin' - choice.

Abu Daoud said...

Society, I think we are all born with an inherited (in a spiritual sense) proclivity towards sin. We are all, thus, born sinners. In Adam all have sinned. That is why the new Adam--Jesus Christ--was needed.

Paul says, "Just as in one man all have sinner, so in one man all can be forgiven." We must avail ourselves of that forgiveness though, for a gift rejected does not benefit anyone.

SocietyVs said...

"We are all, thus, born sinners" (AD)

That's a little bit of a troubling idea to believe - cause then babies need to repent (if that is even possible)? If a baby dies then what...are they in 'sin'? I mean theologically it makes no sense - it's problematic.

If we are to be blamed for something Adam did (which is not the point of the passage you mentioned) - then how fair is that? We are being blamed for something we 'did not do'. I think I get the point you are making though - that the condition of sin is a human condition - it started with Adam (because he was the first) - and has always been part of the human entity. It does raise questions when posed in such a manner as 'we are born into it'.

Still, I basically agree with you.

Abu Daoud said...

Hi Society,

I think that speaking of "fairness" is problematic. Let's speak of Justice. That we all fall in Adam is just because God provides salvation for all in a new Adam.

Now if we all fell from God's grace in Adam, but we then had to achieve our own salvation, that would be unjust.

Regarding babies, as Fletcher and I were discussing today, we entrust them to God's mercy and grace in Christ, which is the same thing we hope in for our salvation.