Showing posts with label Jonathan McLatchie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonathan McLatchie. Show all posts

Wednesday, 17 May 2017

Brief Chat on Andy Bannister's Approach to Evangelism Re Jonathan McLatichie's Facebook



Yahya Snow: What I've noticed even on the Alpha course is that Christians are more willing to go into the smells and bells approach rather than intellectual dialogue about their faith because a proper critique of ideas such as Biblical inerrancy, Trinity and the blood atonement leads them to doubts or even complete rejection.

I recall being on an Alpha and I had, after planting a few seeds, folks reject the idea of Jesus being God and reject the Trinity in the space of an hour.

The intellectual apathy exists on the part of some to allow them to hold on to beliefs they want to hold on to. For instance a church going lady asked me if I thought Jesus was a good person. I gave her an answer she had never heard before. I said the Trinitarian version of Jesus would not be considered a good person in today's Western liberal society as he ordered the killing of mothers and babies as well as allowed the severe beating of females

She was taken aback. She did suggest the story of John 7:53-8:11 to promote the idea he was good. She was almost in tears when I told her that story is a later addition advising her to go home and check the footnotes.

The first time she has ever heard of this. She wasn't a little old lady either. She was in her 20s.

Intellectual apathy is helping Christians remain believing stuff they want to - not truth.

This approach of talking about the "Gospel" will just ultimately fizz into an emotional bout of preaching (smells and bells Christianity), the already convinced or overly emotional types will listen, but once the apologetics spiel is kicked off these folks will close their ears.

Folks like me (the majority) will be yawning and checking our messages during the smells and bells spiel and we may not even hang around till the apologetics stuff. If we do we will be frustrated at having to listen to 30 mins of appealing to emotions thus the Christian apologist may find some folks are really eager to knock the arguments for this worldview down.

I don't think Dr Bannister's approach is going to be pulling up any trees anytime soon.

But Dr Bannister seems like one of the nicer evangelicals (not so difficult given some of the evangelists out there) so maybe he can pull it off more than most. Would be interested in hearing Dr Bannister give us feedback on how effective this new method was in a year's time





Andy Bannister: Thanks, Yahya. It's actually the method that goes right back to the early church --- unless somebody realises they are a sinner and *needs* Christ, why would the cosmological argument interest them? I have seen hundreds of people come to faith in Christ this way (24 at at an event in Canada ten days ago, to give one recent example). Or you could take a look at Keller, whose church in Manhattan has grown from 90 to north of 5,000 largely using this approach. It has nothing to do with appealing to emotions, but to do with helping somebody understand what stands or falls on the gospel. It's the way the gospel has most commonly been presented :-)


Yahya Snow: Appreciated Dr Bannister. I want to look into Tim Keller's ministry more (as a critic) but I don't think I will have time as I plan to do some work on Nicky Gumbel's ministry.
I know from stats in Britain that most converts to each church come from different denominations. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case for your peeps and Keller's church.
The cosmological argument would be listened to by any truth seeker. The you're a sinner stuff gets folks' emotional juices running especially if this is one of the first things being driven at.

And the earlier Pauline church was about performing miracles and healings to get ppl to convert. :) Yet to see any preacher perform a miracle although the Christian faith healers are out there like Reinhard Bonnke who claims to have has millions of converts in Africa whilst he and his protege Daniel Kollenda are giving sketchy accounts of miracles they are performing over there. interesting considering the church in Germany is dying and Bonnke is out in Africa performing "miracles" - wonder why he doesnt pitch up in a Berlin hospital to heal ppl so he can convert onlookers as in the stories in Acts.

Will try to keep an eye out for this new or not-so new approach.

Cheers

May as well dump this here seen as there are interpretations from the Gospel teaching Christians can do miracles

http://thefactsaboutislam.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/nabeel-qureshi-true-christians-can.html?m=0


Andy Bannister: I think any test for truth requires philosophical coherence + existential livability. For example, I'm currently counselling a Muslim academic in a country I won't mention for the sake of his security. It was an emotional response (ISIS) that led him to intellectual questions (especially concerning the Sira and the Qur'an) and has now led him to consider Christianity.

I think you can't have the one without the other — our emotions and our reason need to fit together; we're wholistic beings, neither brains in a jar, or a floating set of emoticons :-)

BTW I agree with you that Alpha needs more apologetics. That's getting added in at last, especially in some of the newer digital resources they've pioneered in places like Canada

.

Yahya Snow: Dr Bannister, sure there are ignorant Muslims out there.

But let's not play a game of equivocation here and cloud people's minds.

The NT is a theoretical reconstruction based on the NT manuscript tradition (the NT manuscripts we have found thus far).

The Dr Bannister of the 1800s or any Bible believing Christian of that time would have had complete confidence in the last few verses of Mark's Gospel and the PA (John 7:53-8:11) but bish-bash-boom Von Tischendorf discovered Codex Sinaiticus (or perhaps even stole it?! :)) which now means we know those two chunks of text are not part of the original text yet we had generations, nations and a planet full of Christians believing those texts were inspired and part of the Scripture prior to that discover about 200 yrs ago (not long in the grand scheme of things)

This disproves the idea the Holy Spirit guides Christians in scripture and it also effectively sets the precedent. ANY verse or chunk of text in the NT is open to a new find (manuscript discovery) which either leads it to being altered or discarded as an authorised addition (let me be crude and call it a forgery) in the future. Bye bye to a Christian's confidence in their favourite NT verse including John 3:16. Mine is Mark 3:35 ( refutes the Trinity idea and promotes an Islamic view of God and Jesus)

Think about that, ANY NT verse could be discarded as a possible forgery upon a new find!!!
And what if we do not make any new finds, we still cannot be confident ANY verse in the NT is part of the original NT as those manuscripts militating against the said verse may have been lost to humanity.

As for Uthman burning manuscripts. It's old hat. ALL the companions agreed with Uthman's principle (inc Ibn Masud). So what do we have, we have all the companions agreeing on what the Quran is and this was passed on orally through Muslim generations including all the different Qiraats. Muslims aren't relying on archaeologists to reconstruct the Quran. We know what the contents of the Quran are. The community of Muslims throughout the history of Islam have known this and do to this day. The benefit of having a collective oral tradition.

Christians don't have an oral tradition and this is why they are reliant on non Christians to help find manuscripts for them and help them with deciding what should be in their NT. Effectively Christians are groping around in Egypt looking for new manuscripts. What version of NA are we on now? 28, 29? 30?

When you don't have an oral tradition you as a community do not know what should and shouldn't be in the text - this is proven by the way Christians are looking at the NT. No certainty. No confidence. Continually in flux with every new Manuscript find with viable differing readings.

Further problems arise when we look at how Christians decided on what to include in their NT canon. Again nobody with any authority, no disciple, ever decided the NT canon. FF Bruce thinks even at the time of Sinaiticus the NT canon was not decided upon! Again, militating against the belief that the Spirit guides Christians in scripture. Revelation (the book of) was hotly debated by the church.

And the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) has problems too. Big problems.

So not only do we have Christians uncertain on their doctrines, Gregory of Nazianzus tells us in the late 4th century that Christians didn't know for sure what to believe about the Holy Spirit as a community (a poke in the eye for the Trinity doctrine) they were also uncertain on their texts centuries after Jesus.

The same applies today. Following conjecture. Sure the conjecture is from some Christians with brilliant minds (and some not so brilliant) but it is still conjecture. Would God want us to follow conjecture about Him or would He want us to have certainty about Him?

Historical Jesus scholars openly declare Jesus was not a Trinitarian.

Folks, is church tradition more valuable than truth?

Think about all this deeply. Pray about it.

Love.




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Friday, 28 April 2017

A Few Thoughts on Jonathan McLatchie's Arguments for the Holy Spirit

Jonathan McLatchie claims the evidence for the Holy Spirit is the continuous sanctification of the believer, causing him or her to grow in holiness. 


But this is at loggerheads with what we observe within Christian communities. If Jonathan truly believes the Holy Spirit works within Christians then how can he explain why Christians are often surpassed by other faith groups in self-discipline (avoiding sins) or the fact 75% of Christians are mired with struggle with pornography?

Christian men view Internet porn more than once a month, with a further 20% admitting that they succumb to temptation every so often. That’s 75% of Christian men engaging with pornography on, let’s say, a monthly basis. [Martin Saunders]

If, as Jonathan believes, the Holy Spirit is working on these people and leading them to become holier then why can’t they break free from their struggles with pornography? Now, other men of other faiths can manage to resist the temptation of pornography, Jonathan McLatchie presumably believes this is done without the Holy Spirit. So is this not proof enough to suggest Jon’s argument for the Holy Spirit being within Christians is spurious at the very least. Surely, Jon as a fundamentalist Christian, would not want to suggest non-Christians are capable of greater moral feats than those led by the Holy Spirit?

Sourced from Ed Atkinson's FB comments

To throw another problem at Jon’s reasoning, what of those Christians who have been in the church for decades promoting and defending church doctrines and then leave the church because they apostatize? Doesn’t that not throw a spanner in the works for Jon’s claims of the Holy Spirit working within Christians and causing them to grow in [Christian] holiness. If this is the case why are we seeing older Christians leaving Christianity, surely if this was the case no decades-old Christian would leave the faith?

The Bible Answer Man, Hank Haanegraaff, is thought to have left Biblical Christianity, in some quarters, recently despite his long term service for Jonathan’s beliefs. I’m sure Jon, I and others can find other such examples.

Paul of Tarsus in Galatians 5 lists what he believes is the fruit of the Spirit:

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Notice, this is stuff you can observe in a Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, Jew or even dare I say an Atheist. But also notice the words peace, gentleness and meekness – our Christian friends may be a little surprised to see a couple of rabbis suggesting Christians are arguably the most violent people in history. How is this if Christians have the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit leads to peace and gentleness? How can other groups (Buddhists, Sikhs, Muslims etc.) be seen as more peaceful and gentle than Christians?

So what exactly do Christians believe the Holy Spirit gives them that others cannot achieve in character and moral standing? Should Christians not rethink their beliefs about the Holy Spirit?

Jonathan McLatchie also cites radical transformations in lives as evidence for the Holy Spirit. But hold on, non-Christians have radical transformations in their lives too.

Lastly, Jon claims Jesus was resurrected and thus believes everything ascribed to Jesus in the Bible. This is circular reasoning. He gets the view that Jesus was resurrected from the Bible. Jon then uses this as a premise to accept everything else ascribed to Jesus in the Bible. Circular.

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Monday, 6 March 2017

Jonanthan McLatchie Should Convert to Islam

Jonathan McLatchie should pronounce Shahada. Jonathan was asking for proof that calling Jesus Yahweh is heresy according the Trinitarian orthodox church. Jonathan has said he will convert to Islam if proof of this can be found.

What I can do is tell you Trinitarian Christians, according to their theology, technically cannot say Jesus is Yahweh

Jesus cannot technically be called Yahweh in a Trinitarian church tradition as Jesus is the 2nd person of the Trinity who took on human flesh (Jesus = Son + Human Flesh). That's not Yahweh in their tradition. Thus according to his church tradition, he cannot call Jesus Yahweh. It would be considered incorrect theological terminology - thus heretical.

Jonathan said "God [Yahweh] worked through Jesus". According to Trinitarian theology, it's correct for Trinitarians to distinguish between Jesus and Yahweh as Jesus is not Yahweh because Jesus is considered to be the Son + Human Flesh. Before the birth of Jesus 2000 years ago, Jesus did not exist according to their theology but Yahweh did exist as three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yahweh is not Jesus according to their theology.

Video ft. Jonathan  McLatchie, Paul Williams and Bart Erhman
This video is also uploaded here and here

A response from Mark Bennett

Yahya said: "my point is Jesus = son + human nature". I think there might be a slight misunderstanding here. Jesus is not the name of a 'person + human nature' but the name given to a person when he began to inhabit that nature or when he obtained and took upon human form. Jesus was the name given to the person/self possessing a human nature.

For example upon death when our bodies become corpses and begin to rot and decay, when we simply exist as as pure spirit, we will not cease to have our personal identity (including our names), rather even without our physical body we will still be identified as we were on earth, simply as us (e.g. Yahya and Mark). Jesus is the name given (upon birth) to a PERSON (the Son) having a human nature, not to a nature itself. As technically speaking we are not materialists, when we look at a corpse, we don't believe the corpse of a beloved one (e.g. lets call him say: "Jacob") that body (corpse) is Jacob, rather we the believe that is the body of (belonging/belonged to) Jacob, but Jacob is now absent from the body. Hence the divine person (the Son of the Father) who upon birth is given the name Jesus is eternal. Jesus is eternal, his physical body is not.

The human nature belonging to Jesus is created. Finally I'm not sure if Yahya understood Jonathan's challenge. As you said: "Jonathan was asking for proof that calling Jesus Yahweh is heresy ACCORDING (to ~ MB) THE TRINITARIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH". ("Orthodox Trinitarian Churches"). However Yahya what you provide is not proof that the statement and/or belief "Jesus is Yahweh" is heresy according to *any* Orthodox Trinitarian Church, rather you provide an ARGUMENT: "What I can do is tell you Trinitarian Christians, according to THEIR THEOLOGY, TECHNICALLY CANNOT SAY Jesus is Yahweh" and: "Jesus CANNOT TECHNICALLY be called Yahweh in a Trinitarian church tradition". After making (what you think) are logical inferences you then conclude: "That's not Yahweh in their tradition. Thus according to his church tradition, he cannot call Jesus Yahweh. It would be considered incorrect theological terminology - thus heretical."

But where has this tradition drawn the same conclusion as you have? This is your unique and personal deduction given the propositions in Christian theology. But in articles of the faith and the denunciation of heresies, such beliefs have not only never been made explicit throughout church history, but the opposite has been repeatedly and positively affirmed (from the beginning to later), even in the earliest creeds or orthodox beliefs e.g. Phil 2:6-11. Hence your personal 'inference' is not presented or established by the Church itself and contradicted by the Church itself. This is the challenge McLatchie is making in the first place, that you can't produce such a statement from that Orthodox tradition, anymore than I can present a creedal statement from the Sunni tradition testifying "Mohammed is not a prophet", despite me believing that certain contradictory notions in the Sunni tradition could lead one to infer such a conclusion.


My response to Mark

Thanks for your time Mark. It’s only right I dedicate some time to your comment.

Oh yeah, I completely agree Jon’s challenge was that of an orthodox church council stating the belief “Jesus is Yahweh” to be heretical. That’s quite vague as we can’t establish what is meant by “orthodox church”.

For instance, are we talking about post the first council at Nicaea? Or Constantinople in 381? Or the 8th century church after the 7 Ecumenical councils? But what of the Ante-Nicene Fathers and their respective churches? I don’t believe the Ante-Nicenes believed in the Trinity idea so for people like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Polycarp and Ignatius the belief of Jesus being the 2nd Person of a Trinity doctrine would have been deemed to be *heretical*. So that is one route I could have gone down in response to Jon.

I could also have gone down the route of using the councils that ruled in favour of Arius and/or what was later to be pejoratively called “Arianism” during the period between 1st Nicaea and Constantinople. Another possible route one could go down.

The third route would be to focus on those in the New Testament and/or those who wrote parts of the Scripture we now know as the NT. The statement “Jesus is Yahweh” would be heretical in their eyes. For instance Peter saying Jesus was a man attested by God. Or the belief Jesus was not pre-existent in Matthew and Luke. There’s plenty more – a discussion for a later perhaps.

In hindsight I should have used an accumulative argument in the video and post – I hope to add this and your comment to the blog post (God willing).

But hey alas, I’m defending my deductive argument. So let’s just focus on this. You made some interesting points. Mark, you wrote: “For example upon death when our bodies become corpses and begin to rot and decay, when we simply exist as as pure spirit, we will not cease to have our personal identity (including our names), rather even without our physical body we will still be identified as we were on earth, simply as us (e.g. Yahya and Mark). Jesus is the name given (upon birth) to a PERSON (the Son) having a human nature, not to a nature itself. As technically speaking we are not materialists, when we look at a corpse, we don't believe the corpse of a beloved one (e.g. lets call him say: "Jacob") that body (corpse) is Jacob, rather we the believe that is the body of (belonging/belonged to) Jacob, but Jacob is now absent from the body Hence the divine person (the Son of the Father) who upon birth is given the name Jesus is eternal. Jesus is eternal, his physical body is not.”

Two thoughts after reading your comment above:

1. Thinking about this it seems like you’re veering to something like Apollinarianism. The “orthodox” belief is that Jesus had a human spirit/mind. Whilst Apollinarianism denies that by arguing Jesus didn’t have a human mind/spirit but this was replaced by the divine. Let’s focus on the idea of an “orthodox” understanding here, you can’t argue (from that theology) that the Son was the person of Jesus as our soul/mind/spirit is the person of us – Jesus has a human soul/mind/spirit according to “orthodox” theology.

2. You seem to have drawn a dichotomy between Jesus and the Son. Is this dichotomy *only* due to naming or is there some other reason for this distinction? My question here is, in your view what is the difference between the Son and Jesus? There’s a change in name due to the idea of pre-incarnation and post incarnation but there is another change in the Trinitarian mindset due to the belief there was an addition of a human body - an earthly and resurrection body. The follow up question here is what does the Trinitarian think about this belief that “God” changed whilst also believing God transcends time? [Mark, that’s just a side question – you don’t have to deal with that question in this discussion for now if you feel it will take us away from the topic]

Is Christian Persecution Complex Harming Muslim-Christian Dialogue?

Do Jay Smith's Pfander Centre for Apologetics Really Preach Trinitarian Views on Jesus?

Does Jesus use Violence and Force According to Trinitarian Christianity?

Synoptic Gospels and the Idea of a Pre-Existent Jesus?






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Saturday, 4 March 2017

1 John 2:22 Manuscript Discussion

Recently, there was a bit of online fuss over a 1 John 2:22 manuscript. The argument made was casting doubt on whether the highlighted portion (bold)  of 1 John 2:22 was part of the original text.

Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. [1 John 2:22]

It is true for this particular manuscript the saying "Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son" is "missing". It ends at: ουκ εστιν ισ

The manuscript exists although, I understand, Mustafa Ahmed's article initially got the nomenclature mixed up hence the difficulty and confusion in finding the relevant manuscript. No need for anybody to call Mustafa a liar here. It exists, his article wasn't making all this up. Those who did resort to such finger pointing need to apologise for false witness.

OK, but is it an argument with efficacy? I am not convinced. There's a lot of confusion around this manuscript.

1. The first bout of confusion arises, from the reader's view point, due to the automatic assumption that it is written on papyrus, paper or parchment (as most NT manuscripts are). It's actually written on clay. It's a piece of pottery (material ostracron):



Having seen it one automatically knows that it's no big deal that it does not carry the sentence "Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son". It's a small fragment of pottery, there's no reason why it should contain the whole verse. This can only be concluded once the fragment is seen rather than relying on a database of the text on each manuscript. It's a good learning experience for everybody.

2. Secondly, Codex Sinaiticus is older than this piece and Codex Sinaiticus contains the whole of 1 John 2:22.

The article states:

"between ~300 CE and 600 CE, this folio (page) falls into the earlier period of ~300 CE. This is the earliest manuscript of 1 John we have" Mustafa Apologist

The earliest date is used from a given range but it's dated to be mid to late 5th century here  and University College London range it from 395CE and beyond. 

It's later than Codex Sinaiticus.

I don't believe the argument in Mustafa Ahmed's article is a convincing argument due to it being built on premises that have not been fully or clearly established. It's an adventurous effort to inject a new argument into the bloodstream of polemics but right now caution is the watchword. Perhaps that argument can be revised in some way albeit I personally don't see a legitimate route for this argument to be carried further.

Hey, why was a new route even necessary? Are these words from Jesus? Isn't 1 John anonymous? Does 1 John carry any authority?

The author doesn't appear to be a Trinitarian!

If there was an oral tradition floating around, which the author of 1 John based this statement of whoever denies the Son has denied the Father on we don’t know the context of the statement. Christians readily admit they don't know the context of purported quotes of Jesus: "..the well-known fact that we often do not have the original context in which Jesus’ sayings were spoken, much less their precise wording" [William Lane Craig]

In addition, if there’s some Prophetic grounding to the statement, it's not an un-Islamic statement as it would appear to be a teaching of whoever denies the Prophet of God has denied God. Isn't that what people who reject the messengers of God essentially wind up doing?






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Tuesday, 31 January 2017

Jonathan McLatchie's Comments on the Apologetics Academy: Orthodox or Heretical?

I suspect Jonathan may have evolved his thoughts on the number of wills Jesus has after the discussion with Mansur. A few months ago, Jonathan did produce a blog post in response to some chatter around his statement to Mansur (i.e.  Jesus has "one will, not two"). In his blog article he has conflated “will” with “desire/urge”.
He has the same mistaken conflation in his discussion with Dr Tony Costa and Paul Williams as highlighted in the clip of him  presenting his thoughts (after Paul Williams had left the room) to Dr Tony Costa. Yes, I know Dr Costa agreed with him but he’s mistaken too albeit his “yes” in agreement with Jonathan seemed a bit unsure. Perhaps he didn’t quite catch Jonathan’s misunderstanding.
In any case, I strongly suspect Dr Costa, in his preparation for his recent debate with Robert Sungenis, watched Dr White’s debate with Robert Sungenis and thus repeated Dr White in asserting the belief Jesus has two wills is orthodox – I don’t think he has researched or thought it through himself (which is not a criticism as this is a very little-known area in Trinitarian Christian theology).
I’ve clipped all the relevant comments in the new video below including Dr James White’s comments clearly teaching the idea of Jesus having two wills is orthodox (and the idea of one will is unorthodox).
Let’s go through some bits from Jonathan McLatchie’s article whilst we’re at it.
JM: I believe that, in one sense, Jesus could be said to have two wills; in another sense, Jesus could be said to have only one will. If by saying that Jesus possesses two distinct wills you mean that He possesses two separate centers of consciousness which conflict in their intentions and will, then such a view collapses into Nestorianism, a well known fifth century heresy which maintains that Jesus is two persons.  At Speaker's Corner, Muslim polemicist Mansoor Ahmed asked me whether the human will of Jesus worships the divine will of Jesus. Thus, it was clear to me that by saying that Jesus possesses two wills, Mansoor meant it in the heretical Nestorian sense. In this sense, Jesus only possesses a single will. Yes, he most definitely possesses two natures. But to suggest that Jesus has two separate and conflicting wills seems to me to be virtually indistinguishable from Nestorianism.
What you’re doing here, Jonathan, is mixing up definitions and terms. It’s really loose language. To say Jesus has only “one will not two” to Mansur just to express the idea that the two wills don’t conflict is careless use of language to say the least To express your idea, why not just say “I believe he has two wills, one divine and one human, but those two wills agree with each other”?  (NOTE: Jonathan later puts forward an example from the NT showing the wills don't agree with each other).
That would avoid all the finger-pointing and cries of “heretic”, right?
And I don’t think it’s clear Mansur was driving at the wills not being in agreement so I have reservations when it comes to your reasoning explaining why  you said what you did did to Mansur. I think Mansur was driving at the same point Dr Bart Ehrman hints at. Bart Ehrman writes the following when asked why there was such an opposition in the first 1000 years of Christianity to the idea of Jesus having one will and one nature:
The problem was that he had to be fully human and fully divine, not half of each. Otherwise, it was thought, he wasn’t “really” either, but a kind of hybrid. [Bart Erhman]
Herein is the issue. If one maintains there are two natures with respect to Jesus then each nature will be said to have a separate consciousness (i.e. will) otherwise the natures (both human and divine) would be considered incomplete. Quite perceptively, this seems to be one of the observations Mansur brings to the fore in his discussion with Jonathan.
JM: In another sense, however, Jesus can be said to have two wills. This is clearly seen, for instance, at Jesus' temptation (Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 4), in which Jesus, according to Hebrews 4 "in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." One might ask, if I am saying that Jesus possesses only one will, then how can He have been tempted? After all, God cannot sin. In response to this, I would point out that even a single person can have a complexity of will. For example, a sailor drifting at sea might desire to drink the sea water in order to quench his thirst, and yet at the same time know that drinking the salt water will only worsen his thirst. In a similar way, Christ -- being fully and completely human -- possessed human desires, such as the desire to not be hungry. At the same time, however, he knew that it would be sinful for him to turn the stones into bread as the Devil has tempted him to do, and so he did not succumb to the temptation. Thus, insofar as it is possible for a single person to possess a complexity of will, Jesus possessed a complexity of will.
Jonathan, this idea of “complexity of will” is just a conflation between will and desire on your part. I think you’re basing arguments on flawed definitions and understandings of terms and words here.
I think Jonathan has a mistaken understanding of the concept of “will”, he’s confusing it with natural urges/desires.
“Will” doesn’t refer to “desire”. “Will” refers to a centre of consciousness. For a human it’s effectively the capacity to process desire (and reason) to act/think decisively.
In order to be considered fully human, orthodox Christians insist Jesus  has a human will, the same applies to the idea of his divine nature (thus they insist Jesus had a divine will too). To say Jesus only had one will would open the door to folks who maintain monophysitism and/or monothelitism as the divine and human natures  are not considered complete or full.
JM: It was in His human nature that Christ bore the temptation to sin. I believe that the divine nature of Christ would always have served as a backstop to prevent Christ from sinning. Nonetheless, Christ bore the temptation in the arm of His flesh and overcame.
I think this conflation of nature and will is Jonathan flying close to the sun. Sooner or later he will get too close to the sun and ultimately plunge into the sea of “heresy” – perhaps he has already taken a dip or two.
This  is just another example of how the Gospel authors didn’t have the same theology as Trinitarian Christians like Jonathan McLatchie. If they truly believed the “divine nature” of Jesus would ultimately prevent Jesus from sinning then how can they describe it as a temptation to sin? A temptation to do something can only be a temptation IF the means and ability is there. There’s no good somebody giving me a bike and then claiming they’ve tempted me to travel to Mars! I don’t have the ability to travel there, there’s a backstop in place, thus I can’t be tempted.According to Trinitarians,  Jesus didn’t have the ability to fall into that temptation to sin so the assumption here is either:
1. The authors of the Gospels and Hebrews didn’t believe Jesus had a “divine nature” acting as a  “backstop” preventing him from sinning.
2.The authors of the Gospels believed Jesus’s human nature didn’t know he had a “divine nature” acting as a “backstop” preventing him from sinning.
3. The authors of these books didn’t really think their words through theologically.
JM: Likewise, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus in His human nature had the desire to not experience pain or abandonment and separation from the favorable presence of God, for "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). And He knew very well what experiencing the wrath of God would entail. Hence, in Matthew 26:39 / Mark 14:36, Jesus says "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." While, since He possessed a human nature, He felt the human desire to not experience pain, He nonetheless understood full well that experiencing the wrath of God would be necessary in order to provide redemption for His people.
In summary, the idea that Christ has two wills, I believe to be in error in any sense that suggests that Christ possesses two separate centers of consciousness (Nestorianism). On the other hand, I believe it is quite valid to assert that Christ possessed a complexity of will in the manner in which individual persons can be said to possess a complexity of will.
And this is the fruit of Jonathan’s mixing of terminologies. Confusion on top of confusion.
Jonathan says Jesus can’t have two wills that conflict yet here he cites an example of Jesus’ human will not being in-line with what the Trinitarians believe to be the will of the divine.
Think about what is being said here. Jonathan cites an example of Jesus consciously asking God for something in opposition to what the Trinitarians believe to be the divine will. The idea of Jesus’ human nature consciously asking for something different to what the divine wills is not only teaching Jesus had two wills but it’s also teaching the wills aren’t in agreement! Yet at the same he’s saying it’s [tantamoun to] Nestorianism (a heresy) to say there Jesus had two conflicting wills.
Lastly, I think we need to make sure our focus is not distracted to the extent that there's no thoughts on whether this idea of dyothelitism is Biblical or not - James White couldn't give a Scriptural basis for such a belief.
Here are all the relevant clips including Jonathan's comments to Dr Costa, Dr Costa's comments to Paul Williams and Mansur's dialogue with Jonathan at Speakers Corner.

James White's Comments Rebuke Arguments of Jay Smith and David Wood

How Jay Smith, Beth Grove, Usama Dakdok and David Wood contribute to the apostasy of Christians

Notes from Sean Finnegan's interview with Patrick Navas: Is the Trinity Biblical

Tovia Singer: Does the New Testament Teach Jesus is God?

Why Islam



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Wednesday, 11 January 2017

Christian Inconsistency Around Arguments for Prophet Muhammad in the Bible

Jonathan McLatchie makes a noteworthy admission and argument which Muslims who argue for Prophet Muhammad being in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible/Tanakh) will be interested in.

Jon acknowledges the Messianic prophecy claims conservative Christians preach are not direct prophecies but what he would consider allegorical, “foreshadows” or “typologies” (although he does think there are some direct prophecies). An example he cites is Hosea 11:1 which the author of Matthew 2:15 believed to be a prophecy of Jesus:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 2 But the more they were called, the more they went away from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. [Hosea 11:1]

Jonathan recognises upon “inspection of the first two verses of Hosea 11, however, reveals that the context is not Messianic at all!”

Jonathan, however, does accept it as a prophecy. A typological prophecy:

What is going on here, one might ask? Is Matthew attempting to pull the wool over our eyes and dupe us into thinking that this is a prediction of the Messiah, earnestly hoping that his readers will not take the trouble to look up the text for themselves? Of course not. Rather, Matthew takes this text to be fulfilled typologically.

But, here’s the thing: if this is your standard and you accept this as a prophecy then you don’t have any reason to reject Zakir Hussain’s arguments for prophecies about Prophet Muhammad p in the Old Testament (and the New Testament) if your consistent. Really, just have a look at Zakir Hussain's arguments and you’ll notice that they are much more convincing than Matthew’s “prophecy” claim.

Based on a cumulative argument of “typological coincidences” of this nature, Jonathan argues it points to divine orchestration:

The numerous typological 'coincidences', of which but a few examples are briefly described above, militates strongly against hypothesis (2). The occurrence of so many correspondences between Jesus' life as reported by the gospels and the Hebrew Scriptures surely can only either be the product of divine orchestration, or human design in the telling of the stories

But hold on, a Muslim could make the same case for Zakir Hussain’s arguments!

Bart Ehrman sums up the situation around Messianic prophecy claims:

You can go through virtually all the alleged messianic prophecies that point to Jesus and show the same things: either the “prophecies” were not actually predictions of the future messiah (and were never taken that way before Christians came along) or the facts of Jesus’ life that are said to have fulfilled these predictions are not actually facts of Jesus’ life. [Bart Ehrman]

My point, thus far, is to highlight the manner in which Christians argue against proponents of prophecies for Prophet Muhammad in the OT is utterly inconsistent. If they were consistent in their rejection of those arguments for Prophet Muhammad in the OT they would reject the allegorical approach they accept for Messianic prophecies; that would be bye-bye to Matthew’s alleged Messianic prophecy leaning on Hosea 11:1.

Deliberate misdirection?

However, the elephant in the room is that of making up prophecies or being overly keen to find prophecies and ending up with claims that are just baffling. Firstly, we know the author/s of the Gospel of John changed stories for theological reasons (i.e. the day of the crucifixion story). We’ve also got the spear thrust story in John and the story of the guard in Matthew which aren’t considered to be historical – those narratives would have been added for theological/apologetical reasons.

But seen as Jonathan is solely focussing on prophecies let’s focus on Matthew's prophecy claims. Jonathan McLatchie doesn’t want people to believe “the gospel authors deliberately set out to deceive and mislead people into believing their accounts to be recalling real history” but the author/s of Matthew seem/s to be making up prophecies or at the very least being victim/s of some of the source material used to compose the Gospel.

One example would be the use of Zech 9:9 in Matthew 21 where the author depicts Jesus riding on a donkey and a colt:

The Hebrew text for this Old Testament prophecy talks about one animal which is described twice, but its Greek translation uses “and”, meaning two animals instead. Matthew relied on the Greek translation of the Old Testament so he made Jesus ride on two animals. He had to change the earlier part of the story to make Jesus order his two disciples to bring a donkey and a colt. The fact that Jesus could not have ridden on two animals at the same time did not bother Matthew! [Dr Loauy Fatoohi]

And the claim of a prophecy of one to be called a “Nazarene” in Matt 2:

Like other prophecies quoted by Mathew, there is a serious problem with this prophecy: it does not occur anywhere in the Old Testament! [Dr Louay Fatoohi]

Perhaps another example for the notion the Gospel authors were shaping their narratives on their interpretation of the Scriptures (the OT) would be the narrative of Jesus being born in Bethlehem:

But the authors of the Gospels were themselves influenced in their telling of Jesus’ story by the passages of Scripture that they took to be messianic predictions, and they told their stories in the light of those passages.

Take Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. A couple of times on the blog I’ve talked about how problematic it is to think that this is a historical datum. It’s true that both Matthew and Luke say that Jesus was born in that small village. But Mark and John do not assume that this is true, but rather that he came from Galilee, from the village of Nazareth. Moreover, Matthew and Luke *get* Jesus born in Bethlehem in radically different and contradictory ways, so that for both of them he is born there even though he comes from Nazareth. Why don’t they have a consistent account of the matter?

It is almost certainly because they both want to be able to claim that his birth was in Bethlehem, even though both of them know for a fact he did not come from Bethlehem, but from Nazareth. Then why do Matthew and Luke want to argue (in different ways) that he was born in Bethlehem? It is because in their view — based on the Old Testament prophet Micah 5:2 — that’s where the messiah had to come from. And so for them, Jesus *had* to come from there. They aren’t recording a historical datum from Jesus’ life; they are writing accounts that are influenced by the Old Testament precisely to show that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. [Bart Ehrman]


Paula Fredriksen: Paul was NOT a Trinitarian

Did Peter Believe in the Trinity?

Jonathan McLatchie + Liz Mooney: Biblical Age of Consent

Thoughts on the Hamza Myatt, Liz Mooney, Chris Claus and Jonathan McLatchie Exchanges

Debate Analysis: Abdurraheem Green and Jonathan McLatchie on Trinity and Tauhid - IERA and Apologetics Academy

The Laziest Debate Review of Inamullah Mumtaz - Jonathan McLatchie on "Is Jesus God"

Jonathan McLatchie Using Atheist Arguments to Attack Quran

Christian Polemicist Jay Smith and The Christian Apologetics Alliance Debunked Again

Jay Smith Disturbs Muslims, Honor Killings

Did Jonathan McLatchie Copy Nabeel Qureshi?

Hate Speech at St. Timothy's Parish Church, Middlesbrough (UK)

Christian Voice ‘Mosque Watch’

UK Church Hosts Speaker Inciting Hatred and Fear of Muslims!

Paul Williams Disapponted in Jonathan McLatchie

Does Jonathan McLatchie Believe the Bible Teaches a Flat Earth?

Jonathan McLatchie and Alexander the Great - Christian apologists take note!
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Sunday, 18 December 2016

Jonathan McLatchie + Liz Mooney: Biblical Age of Consent

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This is something  that I want to zone in on. It is at the back end of the EF Dawah video discussion with Elizabeth Mooney. I caught it in Jonathan McLatchie's 4th (fourth) video in his commentary on that discussion (yes I wound up listening to a bit more of that commentary - it's about 5 hours in total there's no way I'm listening to it all!)

Western Secularist polemics being dressed up as “Christian”

Elizabeth Mooney states the Prophet had a 6 year old wife and then asks if that is somebody you think you should follow Hamza Myatt states there are two schools of thought: the first being the marriage was conducted at the age of 6 and the consummation/living together began when the parents of Aisha ra deemed  her of age (the Sahih Hadith record Aisha stating her age was 9 at this time) Hamza states the other opinion has her older and gives the figure of 13/14 at which Liz still objects to.

Let’s stick to the first one – there’s no need to consider what other opinions may or may not say. Liz wasn't even willing to accept 13/14. I have no problems with the age in the Sahih Hadith tradition. It’s not a problem if one can contextualise and is willing to show elements of fairness and academic rigour. What Liz is doing here is a back-projection of cultural norms in today’s West and using them unfairly to produce a polemic. To be fair to her this did not originate from her; this is sadly something that Christian missionaries and apologists pass onto their co-religionists uncritically and it spreads like wild-fire. The reality is the Prophet’s marriage to Aisha is not unBiblical and that practice in marriage would have been considered the norm in Jewish cultures at the time of Jesus (and even earlier, Moses).

I’ve written on this topic before using Prof. Geza Vermes but in short, the custom back then was to marry the girl (prior to her having come of age) and waited years till she came of age before sending her to live with her husband. It’s exactly the same as the marriage of Aisha to Muhammad p Aisha's parents decided when she was ready to live with the Prophet after betrothal. She had been betrothed to somebody else prior to her betrothal to the Prophet showing the cultural norm taking place here.

Betrothal of minors was a Jewish norm awaiting for maturity

Standard Jewish practice at the time was the betrothal of minors – females attained maturity at the age of twelve or whenever they started to menstruate.
Quite apart from the subordinate status of women in Jewish Law, in the rabbinic era and no doubt earlier too, the bride-to-be was by definition a minor, a person not yet of age. It should be noted that in the Mishnaic-Talmudic legislation girls attained majority when they started to menstruate, or on the day after their twelfth birthday, whichever came first. In the rabbinic perspective, majority and attainment of puberty were coterminous. By the age of twelve years and six months a young woman became, in the terminology of the rabbis ‘mature’ (bogeret), and was expected already to be married. In any case, by then her father no longer had the right unilaterally to betroth her.
Now, the marriage of Aisha and Muhammad has helped Muslim jurists to form marriage laws around minors which is similar to those of our Jewish friends throughout history. Here’s Dr Jonathan Brown:

... It was most appropriate for the bride, groom and the bride's guardian to determine the appropriate age for intercourse. The norm that the ulama did come to consensus on was only a general guideline: they prohibited sexual intercourse for girls 'not able to undergo it,' on the basis that otherwise sex could be physically harmful. If the groom and his wife or her guardian disagreed about her capacity for sex, a Shariah court judge would decide, perhaps after a female expert witness examined her. This was also based on the Prophet's marriage to Aisha. The couple had concluded the marriage contract when Aisha was only six but waited to consummate the marriage until she reached physical maturity. ..A Scottish physician resident in Aleppo in the mid 1700s noted how families endeavoured to marry their children off (i.e. complete the marriage contract) at a young age but that they would not consummate the marriage until the girl 'had come of age''. Historical evidence from nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine suggests that the husbands having sexual intercourse with wives before they reached puberty did sometimes occur. But it was rare, condemned socially and censured by Shariah court judges. Shariah courts in French Algeria in the 1850s considered it equally despicable. 'Misquoting Muhammad', Jonathan A.C Brown, Kindle p143

In fact, the Qur’ān clearly stipulates that marriage can only take place between individuals who have matured in their biological and psychological development (puberty). In reference to footnote 1 which cites Quran 4:6.

So why is this type of polemic never directed at our Jewish friends? Why don’t Christian polemicists say Judaism is false because it doesn’t conform with 21st century Western norms?


Inconsistency: The Prophet's marriage is not against the Bible

The inconsistency goes deeper. Prophet Muhammad’s marriage is not in opposition to the Bible; the Biblical age of consent according to Jonathan McLatchie’s colleague is puberty. So somebody like Elizabeth Mooney is really not being helped by Christian apologists like Jon who either don’t know this or just don’t speak up.

Age of marriage is puberty according to the Bible.We have already seen Ezekiel 16 being used as a proof text by a Christian apologist to show the Biblical age of consent is puberty: ...Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare. 8 " 'Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love... [taken from Ezekiel 16] "...Thus, we have a biblical text establishing puberty as the minimum age for marriage..." [See here for more from the Christian apologist]

In this section I will also throw in a couple of quotes of interest that I sourced from “Brother of Jesus”, a commentator on BT:

“The Bible gives us no indication as to the age of marriage for women, which would not be appreciably different from the age at which childbearing begins. However, based on the tenuous calculations of the marriage age of certain Judean kings (e.g. Josiah: age 14; Amon: 14) and the rabbinic stipulation of twelve as the minimum age of marriage for girls and thirteen for boys, an early age for marriage can be presumed (de Vaux 1961: 29). Similarly, the relatively short life spans of the ancient world, particularly in plague epochs, would lead to the conclusion that marriage took place soon after puberty, with betrothal preceding marriage perhaps by many years.” (Meyers, C. L. (1996). Procreation, Production, and Protection: Male-Female Balance in Early Israel. In Charles E. Carter & Carol L. Meyers (eds.), Community, Identity, and Ideology: Social Sciences Approaches to the Hebrew Bible. United States: Eisenbrauns. p. 507)

“The Bible gives us no information about the age at which girls are married. The practice of marrying the eldest first was not universal (Gn 29:26). On the other hand, it seems certain that girls, and therefore presumably boys too, were married very young; for centuries this has been the custom of the East, and in many places it still obtains to-day.” (De Vaux, R. (1997). Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (John McHugh, trans.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. EerdmansPublishing Co. p. 29)

Can cultural oddities be used as polemics?

Polemics like these are not only inconsistent but are actually self-refuting  as they can be applied to our great grand parents’ generation and the rest of our ancestors . Ironically, this type of argument may be applied to us (including Liz, Jon and co.) by future generations. Surely, that’s a sign of a failed argument:

Non-Muslims would serve themselves better by contemplating the Prophet's teachings of monotheism and righteousness, and the Book he presented as God's revelation, rather than dwelling on what is, at most, a socio-culturally historical oddity... ... In Shakespeare's classic play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet was only thirteen, yet her mother tells her that “ladies of esteem” younger than her are already mothers.[2] According to the “Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society,” both Christian Canon law and European civil law considered seven years as the age of consent, but judges in medieval England would approve marriages based on mutual consent at ages even lower than 7.[3] As recently as the nineteenth century, ages of consent of 13 to 14 were common in Western countries.[2] Now, we are responsible for acting in accordance with our conscience, and our own societal norms may well factor into this, but it may be a bit presumptuous to pass judgment on people of the past and future, and those of other cultures. People in the future may well look on some of our mores as bizarre. [Danesh Juyandeh]

“Is that somebody you should be following” - Liz Mooney.  Jesus according to Trinitarians allowed what???

Look, this goes beyond ages of consent. This issue of inconsistency is not only offensive to Muslims and an impediment to sincere dialogue in the Christian-Muslim discussion room but it’s  problematic as it’s setting Christians up to leave the Abrahamic tradition. Liz found the idea of an older man even marrying a 13/14 year old problematic  and questioned following Prophet Muhammad p by asking whether one should follow a man who had such a marriage but if we extrapolate that and apply it to what Trinitarians believe about Jesus then she’s condemning the “Trinitarian Jesus” (so too are the Christian apologists and the right wing bigots who use this polemic) and is setting up a standard which will ultimately leave the one who applies that standard consistently to reject the Bible and Biblical figures. Jesus according to Trinitarians:

~Allowed the severe beating of female slaves as long as they got up after a couple of days [Exodus 21:20]

~Ordered the killing of children, infants and WOMEN  [1 Samuel 15:3]

And seen as we have mentioned our Jewish brothers, the Christian who applies that standard consistently will end up at the door of the synagogue questioning Jews for following Moses as the Bible teaches he ordered the killing of boys and of non-virgin women [Numbers 31:17]


Why the Muslims?

The question has to be asked, why are Christian apologists  predominantly using these flawed and offensive arguments against Muslims? Come on, there has to be a reason.. right? Why aren't they telling the Sikhs their religion is false because Guru Gobind Singh married a 12 yr old. Why aren’t they telling the Jews their religion is false because the rabbis allow sex with 12 year old girls? Why aren’t they not telling Jews about what Moses did in the OT and asking them to reject him as a Prophet?

Why not?

And closer to (their) home, why aren't they not knocking on their co-religionists' doors and yelling at them to stop following the Trinitarian view of Jesus as that teaches he allowed the beating of females and even the killing of children and women. If you’re a Muslim who comes across that type of argument just stand up to it. It’s literally an internet argument that folk like the EDL use to offend Muslims - yes Tommy Robinson and co. come out with that drivel (I’m not linking Liz or Jon with that band of racists and thugs - I'm highlighting the level of the polemic!)

So why are Christian apologists using such low-level arguments? And why aren’t folk like Jon not saying hang on here folks we need to stop using inconsistent arguments to try and convert Muslims into believing in the Trinity idea?

Why not? And again, why not?

I say it’s because there’s a load of group-think and herd mentality taking place in Christian apologetics (to Muslims) right now and nobody is willing to go against the grain and start calling inconsistent arguments (and those based on total fabrications) out. They allow these arguments to fester and spread amongst their apologetics and missionary communities. They tell us they have the Holy Spirit but I just don’t see anything holy in these arguments.These arguments are unholy - they are intellectually dishonest, inconsistent, offensive, unChristian and unBiblical.

I know Jon’s friend has recently rebuked James White for inconsistency, nasty treatment of Christians and arrogance despite having bit his tongue for years (indicating just how difficult it is for a Christian apologist to go against the grain and speak out against obviously problematic behaviour amongst Christian apologists).

Folks, don’t you not see how self-refuting your argumentation style actually is? You say you have the Holy Spirit and you want us to believe you yet we see the offensive and inconsistent arguments you allow to spread and propagate. Self refutation.


Message to Jonathan McLatchie

You had an ideal opportunity to say: hold on, this argument is invalid, it’s offensive, unfair and it will lead to Christians leaving Christianity if it is applied consistently. Why did you not say such? Ask yourself...

There was a segment where David Wood was being championed by one or more of your (Jon’s) colleagues, Wood is the guy who plagiarised an Islamophobic  Coptic Christian priest and spread the sex with a dead body lie. He’s the same bloke who totally misunderstood the Arabic and claimed Prophet Muhammad was a cross-dresser (in the process he actually wore his wife’s nightwear on camera contravening the Biblical law against crossdressing), not to mention the thighing hoax amongst other such claims. anybody who looks at David Wood's (as well as Jay Smith's) arguments critically will see the inconsistencies and how they arm Christians with standards that will inevitably mean the consistent will leave Christianity

I don’t understand why Muslims are still waiting for a Christian who claims to have the Holy Spirit to actually speak up and clean up the offensive  polemics that are rampant in Christian apologetics. You know about the Trinity channel you work with – they’ve  had Christians on there wanting to nuke Muslims or use Iraq to have a proxy war with Iran nevermind firing wild-eyed polemics at Muslims. Perhaps them just showing us "love"?

Hmm, I know Christians talk big about love but I don’t see it coming from Christian apologists towards Muslims. Or perhaps love is redefined as trying to get young Muslims to cower in corners, belittlement, mockery and slanders when it comes to dealing with Muslims. Can we have a Christian, PLEASE, who is sincere and courageous enough to clean Christian polemics up and regulate Christian apologists/polemicists a little. Please...

Blog: Jonathan McLatchie, yes it is Islamophobic to say what you said...

Thoughts on the Hamza Myatt, Liz Mooney, Chris Claus and Jonathan McLatchie Exchanges

Debate Analysis: Abdurraheem Green and Jonathan McLatchie on Trinity and Tauhid - IERA and Apologetics Academy

The Laziest Debate Review of Inamullah Mumtaz - Jonathan McLatchie on "Is Jesus God"

Jonathan McLatchie Using Atheist Arguments to Attack Quran

Christian Polemicist Jay Smith and The Christian Apologetics Alliance Debunked Again

Jay Smith Disturbs Muslims, Honor Killings

Did Jonathan McLatchie Copy Nabeel Qureshi?

Hate Speech at St. Timothy's Parish Church, Middlesbrough (UK)

Christian Voice ‘Mosque Watch’

UK Church Hosts Speaker Inciting Hatred and Fear of Muslims!

Paul Williams Disapponted in Jonathan McLatchie

Does Jonathan McLatchie Believe the Bible Teaches a Flat Earth?

Jonathan McLatchie and Alexander the Great - Christian apologists take note!
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