Zwemer Center

RESOURCES:

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, Gary Habermas

Interlude Music by:

Josh Woodard – Hey Ruth (Instrumental)

Blue Dot Sessions – Demalion, Itasca

Kai Engel – After Midnight

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Answering Muslim Objections to Christianity with Dr. Daniel Janosik

Okay. This week on truth about Muslims is our part 2 session dealing with, addressing Muslim objections to Christianity. And those of you that have listened for a long time know I’m not the biggest fan of apologetics. At times, I am. At times, I find that I’m not convinced that it’s effective.

But I have a good friend that, engages in a in a style of apologetics that I think most people aren’t really sure how effective it is. And I think it’s because they’ve never taken the time to ask somebody that does this, how does it work? And so here’s just a brief sound sample of what that looks like. We know who that name is. We know who God.

Once again, Muslim terrorists. A terrorist A terrorist Islamic extremist now. These are terrorists of the country. They have random justice and brutal endeavors. News flash America.

These Muslim extremists are, are alive and well. They are not dead, and their video is not gratuitous, and it certainly is not irrelevant. It is a warning. Welcome to the truth about Muslims podcast, the official podcast of the Swimmer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media. Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor.

Alright. So I’m here again, Howard and I with doctor Daniel Janosic. You guys just heard, Daniel trying to explain the trinity in Speaker’s Corner in London. It just sounds like chaos. So help us understand how is this an effective means of addressing Muslim concerns.

Actually, before you do that, can you describe because they can’t see what we just saw. So describe what was happening because they’re just gonna hear a bunch of shouting and all this kind of stuff. So so what is the scene? What is it like when you walk in? Oh, it’s very disorienting.

I’ve only done this a few times with Jay Smith. He is an old pro, and he’s done it, since the nineties. So for over 20 years, he’s been going out on Sunday afternoons and he has a great effect. I’ll get back to why he has a great effect and influence in that area. But it is very chaotic.

You get up on a ladder, a stepladder, and, so you can be up above the people and really you’re trying to engage the people in the middle because right in front of you, you’ve got the hecklers and they can be very intimidating and disruptive and it’s hard to have a constant, consistent stream of thought. You you have to, speak in sound bites. You have to kind of keep your concentration and not let them bother you, which is very hard at first, but you’re talking to the middle of the, of the pack because that’s where people are actually listening. Like on the fence. People that are on the fence.

People on the fence and they wanna know and so that’s where Jay has Jay Smith has been very effective and, there’s some great stories of of what goes on there. But, here, I was trying to I I told Jay I wanted to talk on the trinity And, what a mistake. You mean you mean you mean shout shout on the trinity. Shout on the trinity. From the literal soapbox, he was gonna give the explanation of the trinity.

That’s what’s so exciting about it, though, is I picture the soapbox like you’re standing up on a soapbox and trying to shout over these people that are literally heckling you. Yes. They are. And this is in London. This is in London.

It’s at Hyde Park. There’s a corner of Hyde Park called Speaker’s Corner. And for the last 100 years, it’s been a a free speech zone. And how many people were there at that time? Oh, you get hundreds of people.

Really? Just to listen to this? Yes. There are hoards of, Muslims, especially Sunday afternoon. They come and they listen to their preachers go to law.

So they’re listening, there there are big crowds of, Muslims listening to other Muslims, you know, talk about politics, talk about the the religion. And then Jay Smith shows up. And they all come on over because they wanna be there for the show. Wait. Wait.

Muslims come over to hear Jay Smith because they’re Yes. Wow. So this is like a a a standing debate, like an ongoing debate Ongoing debate. That happens every Sunday. Every Sunday.

And so Jay is there bringing up, the different things that, that have occurred in the news, the current events, and he will kinda unpack it and try to challenge the Muslims to think about what is going on. Now this is all part of a ministry, the Hyde Park Christian Fellowship, and they get together at All Souls Church earlier that day, that afternoon, and they will talk about, the current events, what’s going on. They’ll have, some special guests. I’ve I’ve spoken there a number of times to this group and then they will pray together. They will pray for their effectiveness.

And then as they go up to the corner, there’ll be maybe, 50, 60 in the summer. There’ll be well over a100 who will be part of this fellowship. They’ll go up there. They’ll engage with the Muslims. Some will go on and, they have certain Muslim friends and they’ll get together and say, oh, let’s go out and have lunch.

They won’t even stay there. They’ll just meet up at that point and they’ll go out and they’ll have tea or they’ll have lunch and they’ll talk about the the gospel. And so it’s a a a place for friendship evangelism for most of the people. This is a a place of engagement. So what’s the atmosphere like?

Is it, is it Oh, it can be very tense. The yeah. Like, is it is on the brink of, like, violence or, like, anger or hatred? Let let me tell you one one story that that just kind of encapsulates what’s going on there. Yes, please.

Jay was, talking about, some current event, and one of his Muslim, friend slash enemies, came up and and and challenged him. They loved to to hate Jay. You know, it’s kinda the the thing to do. But this tells a different story. And so this other Muslim came up.

He he disagreed with what Jay was saying. He said, I I need to debate you. So he brought his ladder over, and so they were standing there on their ladders debating the issue, going back and forth. And, of course, that draws a huge crowd. Well, there’s this one, German guy, tall guy who’s, not very pleasant and he’s an atheist and he doesn’t like the gospel at all.

He doesn’t like Islam or Christianity and he’s always heckling and saying, nasty things. Well, he was there and after this, debate, Jay and, and and and the the Muslim guy, was getting pretty pretty, active in his, debate, and he pushed Jay off the ladder a couple of times. Jay What? And that’s you’re not supposed to do that. I mean, in the past, Jay has been beat up and the police are there Woah.

Around. So, Jay is a pacifist. He’s a a brethren. That’s just He’s like the loudest pacifist I’ve ever seen in my life. He is a pacifist.

He will not, he will not fight. But, he wants the truth out there. He’s he’s, speaking the truth. So anyway, they they had their little, little debate and, the Muslim guy got off his ladder and he was walking away, you know, the crowd was dispersing. And this German atheist came up and said, oh, I hate that, Jay.

Don’t don’t you just hate him, and and, I’m glad that you had a chance to debate him? And the Muslim looks at him and says, what do you mean? Jay Jay believes in god. You don’t believe in god. Jay believes in in, the the good moral principles, and you don’t believe in this.

Jay is my friend. He is my brother. And a German guy is just looking aghast. What’s going on? And then, you know, Jay’s walking by and and the Muslim goes over and said, hey, Jay, come here.

And he puts his arm around Jay and says, Jay is my friend. He’s my brother. Oh, man. And it just blew away this crazy guy. Yeah.

Because Jay gets together with these Muslim guys afterwards. They go to the restaurant. He’s there. They come over and they give him back rubs. They say, boy, Jay, you gave us a hard time out there today.

They’re friends. This is like the the the behind the curtain. Behind the curtain. Yeah. A lot of it is drama, But Jay has seen some of these leaders, Muslim leaders, who were up there speaking for Islam on their ladders become Christians.

In his 6 months, I I remember this one story of, this one, Muslim leader who, listened to Jay week after week after week, and he came to Jay and said, I I I need to become a Christian. What you say is just so persuasive. I can’t get away from it. So he became a Christian. He became he was discipled for for months, and then he came out and he put up his ladder and he was preaching Christ.

And you could imagine his Muslim friends, how angry they were at that. And and that’s pretty dangerous, you know, when you are a convert. Right. Even in even in London. Even in London.

So he had to be careful. But it shows the the power of what’s going on in that, scenario. Now is there, are there rules like ladder height? I just have all these questions going around in my mind. You meant, like, real rules, ladder height?

Well, I’m just thinking, like, if I were gonna I would have to be a very tall ladder. I was thinking about megaphone, actually, if if that’s legal. Yeah. Can you You cannot use megaphone. There are rules.

Well, Jay’s voice sounds like a megaphone. Jay has trained his voice. Yeah. That’s obvious. And and it’s like a Baptist preacher.

Yeah. And he’ll lose it sometimes after he’s there. You know, that evening, he’ll be hoarse. But he drinks a lot of water while he’s there. He’s learned how to use it well because you have to project.

You cannot use a megaphone. You have, yes, certain heights of the ladder. I think 3 rungs or something like that. See? Hey.

He’s laughing at me, but there really are rules to the height of the ladder. Well, remember, it used to be soap boxes. Wooden soap boxes that you would stand on, and that was, you know, get on your soap box and say whatever you want. Now there are some crazy people there at the the at the corner, and you go and you say, where did they crawl out of? Really?

Like, crazy as in, like, the way they talk, the way they act, their beliefs? Their beliefs. I I mean, you know, they’re they’re talking about their aliens or, you know, aliens are talking about. So anybody can speak. You don’t really have to schedule.

No. You just get over there and you Sunday afternoon, you can all through the week, you can do that, but Sunday afternoon is a big time. So the the All Souls Church, you said, more than a hundred kinda come out on Sunday in the summer. Yeah. That’s the meeting place.

And on Sunday afternoons, if you’re in London, go to All Souls Church. Go for the morning service. It’s a great place. And and is that, is that the the people that are on, like, Jay’s side kind of thing? Do they partake in or is it just a big crowd of Muslims that are, like, listening to Jay and Oh, no.

No. The Christians are there also listening. What what I have often done is I’ve been in the crowd is that I will try to sidle up to one of the big hecklers and I’ll I’ll, say, well, you know, that’s that’s interesting. What do you think about that? And we’ll try to dismantle them, try to separate them from that.

Diversion. And then I’ll say, well, I can’t hear very well. Let’s go over here and talk about this. So I’ve pulled them away, from the heckling crowd, far from the heckling crowd. Sounds like a Thomas Hardy novel.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, then this is the key. There are relationships that are built there And so the ones who who pull away, talk to these other Muslims, find those that are interested.

There’s some that are not interested at all. Sure. But you find those that are interested and you go off and you have tea, you have lunch, you you meet them week by week after week, and and you engage them in a bible study in in in an evangelistic time. So it’s a friendship evangelism. Right.

So you automatically have this place that lends itself to questions. People go there, they listen to somebody, and they have questions. Right. And then so you build that relationship on that. The relationship and you build respect.

They respect Jay. They they hate him in the the Muslims. The Muslims respect him because they know that he is talking, he’s speaking the truth, and they can understand that. Well, he doesn’t sound disrespectful either. I thought, you know, like all these fire and brimstone because we have these at universities.

Oh, yeah. They come around and they they call everyone names and say all these table things, but I didn’t hear that from this video clip. He’s, he’s very careful about that. He wants to keep to the issue and, and talk about the Quran, talk about the bible. Now with the particular debate that you heard the segment of when I was trying to deal with the trinity, didn’t get very far, on the the trinity.

I was trying to make it very simple. But, afterward, there were 2 guys who were giving me the hardest time saying, oh, speak within the Bible. Speak I’m giving all these verses in the Bible. They’re not listening. They’re just trying to say things to disrupt me.

But afterwards, I got down. I started speaking to these 2 guys. And right away, we had a rapport. They knew where I was coming from. They knew what I believed that I was a believer, and that I was not afraid to show that.

And so we had a mutual respect right from the beginning, and they were asking good questions. And I I wish I had been, you know, living in London because I would have said, okay. Let’s get our, phone numbers and let’s get together and let’s talk and let’s have meals together. Because that is the place where you make the contacts. What type of questions were they asking?

Were they asking questions to prove you wrong, or were they asking questions out of curiosity? Both. They would, of course, come up with their own Muslim questions and answers, but they’re also asking beyond that. And that’s where it becomes so powerful and where apologetics becomes so important. Because with with apologetics, it’s it’s a a widespread array.

You’re dealing with dialogue with apologetics. You’re you’re dealing with defending the faith. You’re dealing with polemics which would be refuting error. So as I look at apologetics, really, it falls into 3 areas. The first is to understand.

Understand what you believe. Understand what they believe. You need to really know what Muslims believe in order to, refute what they’re saying, and then you need to be able to defend what you believe. So that’s apologetics. Hey, ladies.

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Yep. You’re like, I’ll be so embarrassed if you’re not there. Right. I mean, they’re gonna have legitimate questions that you should be able to give, you know, reasonable answers for. So the one that comes up the most often is probably the Trinity.

So do like, do you have a couple other parts that’s a understand? Understand, defend, and refute. And refute. So understanding, let’s start let’s let’s use that model. Sure.

What do Muslims believe regarding the Trinity? Okay. They have a lot of misconceptions. Like for instance, the Trinity could be made up of God the father, God the mother, and God the son. You have that verse in the Quran where, Jesus is basically going to be asked, did, you ever say worship me and my mother?

And Jesus would reply, I’d never said anything like that. Wouldn’t have associated any partner with God. So they have a misconception about who the Trinity actually is and the persons first. Right. And that’s found in Quran, Surah 5 verse 116 where, Jesus is being asked about that by Allah and he said, glory to thee.

Never could I say that I had, that Jesus is the the son of Mary and that men should worship me and my mother as gods. So that is the misconception that many Muslims have because it’s told over and over and over again, and they don’t hear from Christians. And that’s why Christians need to speak to Muslims and explain what Christianity really believes about the Trinity. The other big thing is that, they believe that Christians believe in 3 gods and they they and I’ve heard this many times. They’re at the corner many times here in the states.

When you even bring up the trinity and they think, how can you believe in 3 gods? I mean, look at the math. 1 plus 1 plus 1, how can it equal 1? That doesn’t make sense, and they will talk about the illogical view of the the trinity. They don’t understand that Christians have always believed that there’s only one God.

And so there are ways to to approach that. So, what would you say? What would you say to a Muslim? He said, because okay. So we understand what the Muslims think.

Right? So then you said the second part was to defend. So how would we defend the idea of the trinity? Okay. One thing is that I would go back and say, let’s look at, let’s look at scripture.

Then they will say, well, wait a minute. Your Bible has been corrupted. We’ll say, let’s put that on the shelf for the moment. Let’s just look at what scripture says because you need to understand, what Christians really believe. Really quick though, Daniel, how would you address that first objection?

Your Bible’s been corrupted. Because I think a lot of folks are thinking, well, a lot of people won’t just shelf it. I think they will. I think you’re right. If you just say let’s just set that aside for a second.

I don’t think the Bible’s been corrupted. That might be sufficient. But is there a sufficient answer that you found effective when they say your Bible’s been corrupted? Well, the the best thing is to to go back to the manuscripts and say, look, the manuscripts that we have go all the way back to the 1st century and we have very good evidence that shows that this has not been changed. Think of this for a moment.

The Bible that Mohammed had, if he had any bible to look at, would have been the exact bible that we have today and it’s the same Bible that they had in the 1st century, the time of right after Christ. There are no major changes. No changes in the view of, the the Trinity. The word is not used in the Bible but neither is which talks about the unity of Allah, is it used in the Quran. And yet they say that, they believe in the unity of Allah.

So we had one guest that her her apologetic, which I thought was very clever, was just to literally have a look of shock on her face and she would say, are you saying that God cannot protect His word? What on earth? What kind of accusation is that against God? Even the Quran says no changes can there be in the words of God and you’re saying that God’s word’s been changed? I can’t is that what you’re saying?

And they’re literally like, no, no, no. That’s not what I’m saying. Jesus is outraged. It’s awesome. Yeah.

So so getting beyond the objection to the word of God, how are you gonna explain this this concept? Because we’re we’re really curious ourselves. I don’t think I could use that particular, format, but I Trevor actually sounded like her. He actually sounded like her. And if she’s listening, sorry for the poor, impression.

Yeah. But but usually, they’re looking for more. And so I just asked them to sideline that for the moment. Let’s just accept it because Mohammed, also had to accept it. That’s what he had.

It hasn’t changed, really. And, so then I would say, Christians have always believed that there is just one God. And this is my challenge to Muslims in many ways. I say, do you really wanna know what Christians believe about this? And I say, yeah.

Do you wanna know the truth about, what Christians believe? And, they’re usually very open in, in that way. So now I say, okay. Christians believe and have always believed there’s only one god. You look at, the old testament, you look at, Deuteronomy, and, there that you have the Shema where they say there’s only one god and, Deuteronomy 64.

Hear, oh Israel, the lord our god is one lord. And that’s what Christians believe, the the very same thing. And yet, when you go to the new testament, which kind of expounds on the old testament, you find a further revelation. You find that this one god is also called father, in Matthew where the you have the lord’s prayer. Starts off with our father.

All through the new testament, Jesus refers to, god as father or, so you you have God referring being referred to as, in the person of father. You also have god being referred to as the spirit, holy spirit. So in acts, for example, acts 5, we have the story of Ananias and Sapphira selling their land and bringing the money to the to the, disciples and saying here we we’ve sold our land and we’re giving it to to feed the poor and so on, which was fine except that they lied about it. And Peter, for some reason, was led by god to, to challenge Ananias. Sapphire wasn’t there at that moment, and he said to Ananias, wait a minute.

You have, lied to god. You said that you sold the land and this is all the money. It’s not. And, Ananias was shocked and god chose this to be a time to give a, a lesson. So, Ananias died right there on the spot because he lied against God.

And then 2 sentences later when, Sapphire comes back and, you know, he’s Peter is explaining what happened and, he said this happened because he lied against the Holy Spirit. So you conflate those together. He called, he said, you lied against god, you lied against the Holy Spirit, they’re 1. So, Peter there is saying that the Holy Spirit is God. And then, of course, you have many verses like John 1:1, which talk about Jesus being god.

And you have, for example, one that I like is John 8, 58 where, Jesus is being challenged by the Pharisees and they said, well, how do you how do you know Abraham? Because Jesus said before Abraham came into existence, he saw me, he knew me, and, they wondered. Well, Jesus then followed up and said, well, before Abraham even existed, I am. He used the term which refers back to the burning bush, the the eternal word or the eternal name of god. I am that I am, the Yahweh.

And they knew that he was calling himself god. They picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy because was saying I am god. I am the very god of gods. And they only believed in 1 god. Christians have always believed in 1 god and yet when you look at the new testament, you see that, this one God is further revealed as being God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit.

Now that starts opening the the door, only opening the door because then they have a lot of other questions. Right. I think the Muslim will probably come back with something along the lines of, you know, the the spirit of God is often, at least in the Islamic theologians, will say that’s the angel Gabriel, and Jesus being the, you know, he’s the Rehulah, the Spirit from God, and he is also the kalema, the the titles of Jesus, a word from God. But they’ll say that we’re stretching it when we say he is a word of God. Their argument is typically that he’s a word from God, a a prophet and a messenger, and also he comes into birth through a virgin birth through the command of the spoken word of God.

But it does seem a little bit strange, almost like there’s a little bit of a trinitarian sort of system in the Quran as well with the spirit and the word and the God the creator. Have you used that at all with Muslims and is it benefactors? Yes. And and that’s where John in Damascus first used that when he was saying, you have called us associators for associating Jesus the son with, with god himself. And, he said in a in return, you Muslims are really mutilating the the, God because you’re pulling away the word and the spirit because the Quran says that, Jesus is the word and the spirit of Allah.

Well, how can Allah be perfect from the beginning if he hasn’t created his word yet and he had his hasn’t created his spirit which is found in Jesus. So this was an argument that, that John used and it’s still effective today. When you mean when you say effective and I guess this kinda goes back to the area in London where you guys do the arguing and and debating. Speaker’s corner. Speaker’s corner.

Yeah. It just slipped my mind like Shouters. Shouters Corner. You you use the word effective, and I’m just wondering, like, what kind of fruit have you seen? I I get I don’t think we’ve actually had we didn’t have closure even on the speaker’s corner part as far as, what convinced you?

And then, with, John of Damascus when he was, using that as an argument to refute Muslims, how did that show in effectiveness? Well, first of all, with Speakers Corner, as I said, a lot of it is for show. Jay is there to bring the Muslims over to get the Christians who have been praying, to, to pair up with the Muslims and go off and do friendship evangelism to really develop a friendship, develop a a a a platform where they can go ahead and answer questions. But Jay does a lot of that, there from the from the, speakers platform as well. So that’s where the real evangelism and ministry takes place.

So it was it’s like, in partnership with So the this the apologetic portion, the speaking, the the drawing out the questions, that’s coupled with the relationship and the evangelism. And Sure. And so they work together. And so we’re seeing, people come to the Lord that way. Yeah.

But also remember that apologetics is very much part of, the the further ministry as they sit down with their Muslim friend and they’re sitting around eating. The the the Muslim’s gonna come up. How what do you say this? Why do you say this about the trinity? I can’t understand this.

1 +1+1 cannot equal 1. They’re going to bring that up. Right. They’re going to bring up the question, how can you say that Jesus is God? Look at Jesus.

He he said that, the the father is greater than I am. He said I cannot I do not know when the time will come. And so the Muslims will look at that and say, well, Jesus cannot be God because he does not know everything. And he, and and beside, he died on the cross. If he died on the cross, then how can god die?

Right. Who was in heaven? Who was taking care of things? They’ll they’ll ask those questions and you need to use apologetics to be able to answer those questions. Well, wasn’t that the original question of Arion?

If Jesus dies on the cross then did God die? And that’s where you have the sort of birth of the Arianism and the Arian heresy that Jesus could not have had a divine nature and a human nature because you can’t crucify the divine nature. Yeah. And so there’s that early heresy right there in the beginnings with Islam and it gets played out again and again later in Mormonism even. Sure.

Same same heresy. And that’s why Nothing new. And that’s why we need to know the answers and that’s what apologetics is. Giving an answer. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that you have.

That’s what apologetics does. We’re giving reasons to Muslims to understand true Christianity and understand why it is logical. The Trinity is logical. It may not be fully understandable because you you on a human level it’s beyond us, but yet it is still logical. We’re not saying one god and 3 gods.

We’re not saying one essence and three essences. We’re saying one God in 3 persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. They have different roles and that’s why I like to use the triangle, illustration. In the triangle illustration, you draw a triangle. You have one triangle.

It has 3 sides, but it’s still there continuous. They make up that one triangle. And at the, vortices of those, of the triangle you have, father at the top, son I usually put on the left, and holy spirit on the right representing the 3 persons. In the middle, I write the word God and then I I draw a line to to God from the 3 vortices and I put the word is on each of those lines because the father is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. But on the outside of the triangle on the, actual sides, I put the word is not.

The father is not the Son. The father is not the Holy Spirit. Jesus is not the Holy Spirit. They have different roles. Jesus died on the cross.

The father didn’t die on the cross. So if they say, well, if Jesus died on the cross, then who’s in heaven? Well, God is in heaven. You know? Father, holy spirit, he is still and Jesus as God is still in heaven because Jesus as God did not die.

He cannot die. Jesus, the human, the god man, the hypostatic union comes in there. He died, but as a human he died, not as god because god cannot die. And they look at me and say, what do you mean? And that just stimulates further explication.

Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where, if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad. So if you wanna be a part of the show, you like partnering with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. And this is where I use a story that really helps someone, a Muslim, who is a thinker and it’s really good for a college student or, because I work with a lot of, Muslims down here at USC and, you know, PhD students and so on and so I bring in the story of, Flatland.

Have you ever heard of, Flatland? I’ve I’ve heard of Flat Stanley, the children’s story. No. No. This is, by a by a philosopher, Abbott, and he wrote a story called Flatland.

I take it from a one dimensional Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

When they turn sideways, you can’t see it. Right. It’s a 2 dimensional world. So and and I use this in order to help them understand that when we talk about the trinity, we’re talking about a god who is multidimensional, far beyond our dimension. So basically, with the flat land, you have 2 dimensions.

You have width and and and, and length. You don’t have any depth. So you’ve got a character there, I call him Alexander Square. So you have this little square in the on the, the the the dimension there, the flat flat land. And Alexander Square is minding his own business.

He has friends and so on and, he sees in the distance, there’s a a dot that that arises just out of nowhere and that dot gets bigger and then he sees an arc because all he can see it’s really a circle there in his 1 to 2 dimensional world. It’s a circle if you’re looking at it from the top because we can see much more than what he can see. But we see a circle appearing there. He can only see the side, the arc and that’s what he represent represents as, his friends who are circles also. So and it it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and then it, comes up to him and and pushes him away.

So there’s force there, and he’s astounded. What is this? He he has never experienced anything like this. Then it retreats and gets smaller and smaller and smaller and becomes a dot and then disappears. And he wonders, what in the world has happened?

So he goes to all his friends in Flatland and he tells a story and he asked them, what do you think is going on? And he realizes he does not have the words to really explain adequately what he has experienced because it’s not in his vocabulary. It’s not in his understanding. He has experienced a three-dimensional object, a sphere, a ball, let’s say, going through his two dimensional world, and he does not have the apparatus to deal with that. So we bring that back to our three-dimensional world, and now we’re talking about a god who is on 10 or 11 or 12 dimensions beyond our world.

If you, read about Hugh Ross and his multidimensionality, it’s really good. So we’re talking about a God who can be 3 in 1, not in the sense of our three-dimensional world, but in a multidimensional way. You know, it’s good because I think a lot of our explanations of the Trinity end up becoming heresy. We don’t even realize it. A lot of our analogies that we come up with, it’s we try.

But, you know, when we make god an egg or an ice cube or something like that, it becomes very much heresy. Yeah. But okay. So you’re a scientist. I know you’ve you teach science as well as apologetics.

I’m curious if you’ve looked into, quantum theory, quantum physics at all in the concept of an atom being in 2 places at one time, same essence, same atom, but they’re actually able to put an object in 2 different places. And then there’s entanglement between the object, so that it can move in 2 different places at the same time when one makes the other act. And I have no idea if there’s a whole lot of accuracy to the way in which I’m explaining this, but that’s how I understand it. And it reminds me of the scripture when it’s Christ talking about acting in accord with the Father, and doing everything according to the Father. Is there is there anything there?

Have you looked at any of the quantum theory with regards to atoms being able to be in 2 places at the same time? Well, actually, it’s they’re not quite in 2 places at the same time. It’s just because of See? It’s heresy then. Never mind.

But it but it does give you at least an analogy of understanding, like the the triple, point of of water where it can be at the same time liquid, gas and solid. But you’re able to to say yes you can have something that, can represent 3 things and yet is one thing, water in 3 states, but they fall short. Right. Because it would you’d have to have a closed system where they could simultaneously exist. Otherwise, you have modalism.

Like Right. You can’t have ice and water at the same time. You have to have either one of the other. And modal and modalism is what? Where basically the son is existing when the father is not existing and the spirit existing when the Spirit Okay.

It’s it’s one God existing in 3 separate individual persons, but not simultaneously. Yeah. So Old Testament is the the Father, New Testament is Jesus Right. And the present church age is the Holy Spirit. Yeah.

That’s not that’s not the trinity. Okay. So we have to understand how those things work. They can help. But that’s why I like at least the triangle will let people visually see that, you have father, son, holy spirit, 3, and yet one God, and the father is not Jesus Christ.

They have a different role. And when you go into the the theology, we talked about John in Damascus, He saw the need to put together the, a compendium compendium of orthodox Christianity. So he wrote this, this treatise, this this, doctrine of orthodox faith. And a lot of it was because he wanted to counter the, the Islamic views and, show the Christians that they had something great to believe in. And in there, he wrote a lot on the trinity and, he talked about the this idea of perichoresis.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the word. It’s a Greek word, perichoresis, or it’s, sometimes talked about, the the the the the, the dance of the Trinity, where you have the father, son and holy spirit revolving or together in this in this type of Like cosmic dance? A cosmic dance. I’m every one. CS Lewis says some of his arguments on the Trinity, I think, are are Raymond Lowell uses something similar.

I don’t know what you guys are talking about. What do you mean about cosmic dancing? What dance are you talking about? Well, think of it this eternal perpetual state of love and a reception of love between father son The relation the relational part And, perichoresis is is just talking about this, this circumincision or circum ambulation of, the father always beginning the son and, the spirit being sent from the father and, that this takes place continuously and it shows relationship. This is the important part that’s picked up today.

Yes. Gregory Anissa was the one who, and and Gregory of Nazianzus, who John faithfully read, used this idea. He was the first one, and then John spoke of it, and then Raymond Law later took that on. And, of course, CS Lewis and others have, picked up on this. But it talks about the relationship and you cannot have true love from god if there’s no object of love.

And so the father loves the the son, and the son loves the holy spirit. There’s that relationship whereas in Islam, you cannot have that. If if Allah is a singularity, then who was there to love in ages past before he created the world? No one. So what does he know about that, that love if it was not always existent in god himself?

Only in a trinity can you have the community through the relationship? Wow. My mind is full. Howard’s stuck on the cosmic dancing. You have a picture in your head about a cosmic I know.

I am imagining he dances. There’s a song called Dance With Me, and it’s very romantic. And I’m like, that happens. It it is a bit odd to talk about God in that sense. It probably makes us a little bit uncomfortable, but there’s certainly, an eternal relationship between father, son, and holy spirit that exists before man.

And I think that that is one of the strengths of the Christian faith because, ultimately, God does not need us, in order to be a God of love. He can be a God of love because he does have a recipient of his love before our creation. One of the interesting things that Muslims have tried to figure out is the whole concept of God’s word. Is it eternal? Is the Quran the eternal word of God?

And if it is eternal, then we could really do something with the concept of God speaking the world into existence there in the beginning of creation and that Isa or Jesus is a word from God. Muslims aren’t all in agreement on this. Some would argue that the words of God are eternal, they’re written on tablets up in heaven with God. Some would argue they’re not eternal, that they came to being at one point. Some would argue that they’re in the mind of God, but it’s a debate even in the Muslim world as well, the idea of the Word of God and its eternity.

Its eternalness. Mhmm. Yes. But that brings us back to the whole idea of understanding, defending, and refuting. We need to understand what we believe and that’s why it’s so important to get a good education so you can understand the trinity in its background.

You can understand what we mean by the deity of Jesus because that’s going to come up. You can understand what we mean about, the authenticity of the scriptures, to be able to corroborate and to support the whole idea that what we have today in the Bible is what was written in the time of, shortly after Jesus by the, the disciples, by Paul, that they were not, corrupted as the Muslims believe. That we understand, that, Jesus did die on the cross. The crucifixion is the, the best, attested historical event in the 1st century. Gary Habermas does a wonderful job in his book, Case for the Resurrection, in showing that, with the minimal facts that, almost all scholars, Christian and atheist even, would say, yes.

The the crucifixion happened. Therefore, Jesus did exist. And yet, Islam denies that with one verse. What is that? 4157?

Yeah. 5 150 44157. 4157. And it appeared that he did not die but somebody else in his place. And really quick on that, it’s very interesting because that sounds exactly like docetism.

Yes. The Jews boast that they killed the Christ, but they killed him not. Nay, it only appeared that they crucified him. Yeah. The idea of it appeared to be crucified was very much a Gnostic idea, docetism, that it appeared as though Christ had a human flesh, but he didn’t.

He only had a divine nature. A lot of this stuff goes right back to the very beginnings of early heresies. Early heresies and why was that brought into the Quran? Now today, most Muslims look at that verse and they say, oh, somebody else was substituted. Judas was substituted or Simon of Cyrene carry who carried the cross.

They were the ones that were crucified. Jesus was just taken up into heaven because then you have later in that, in in Surah 5 where he’s taken up and that’s where he said, Oh, I did not say to them that Mary was also to be taken as a god. But you you have to understand what we believe and then you need to understand what the Muslims believe in order to defend what we believe. And that’s where apologetics really helps in giving answers so that you can relate those answers. And you have to listen to your Muslim friends.

Understand what what they do believe because they don’t all believe the same thing. They come from different backgrounds, and you need to plug into that and understand whether they’re they’re, Sunni or whether they’re Shia, whether they’re, Ahmadine or or even in those particular branches, what they’ve been brought up with, what country they’re coming from. Understand what they believe so that you can, 0 in and help them through to understand what Christianity is saying. Because they are not dealing with true Christianity. And that’s why I like to bring up with them the the the challenge.

Do you want to know what true Christianity says about this? What we believe about the trinity? And you need to be able to explain that. What do we believe about the deity of Christ that he is God himself? You need to know the verses that point to that and, about the the crucifixion and and what, sources you go to, what verses you would use.

I teach a course on the resurrection, a whole course on that, and we go through, Gary Habermas and Mike Lacona and NT Wright, excellent sources to to give background. And, so it’s always important to be well versed in these things. I know you’ve worked a lot with, Ravi Zacharias Ministries and some of their academics, studying Islam. What do you think of this quote that love is the most powerful apologetic and tying that together with all of your defense? Well, I think Ravi is probably the foremost apologist in the world.

He looks at the questioner. He answers the questioner, and it’s because he wants to show them that he loves them, he respects them. He’s going to listen and answer their particular question. And above all, you’ve got to reach out to that person, answer their questions, be ready to answer their question because if you truly love them, you want them to know the truth because we believe that the truth will set them free. And Jesus says in, John 146, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me. If we believe that as Christians, then we need to act upon it and we need to be able to defend what we believe in truth and love. Well, doctor Daniel Janosic, thank you so much for, spending the morning with us. Man, my brain is full. I’m looking through, some of the books that you had mentioned.

I’m like, man, these guys are really smart, all these people. So, I’m gonna be reading, some of these books that you guys had mentioned too and, really glad that you guys got there. You got to come and share this topic with us. Howard, you should share the story about when we were in Trafalgar Square doing our soapbox ministry back in the, late nineties. Well, we we did have a one experience in London that was quite exciting because, we were working with a ministry too that, did open evangelist.

Same church. I don’t remember. Yeah. All Souls does ring a bell, but, it was, you know, kind of a smaller church. But, one of the things that we wanted to do was go to Trafalgar Square.

And, you know, there’s all these acts. Like, you know, people would come sing or do, you know, whatever. We had we had dramas in the Youth With A Mission 19 seventies fashion. But my wife had written a drama, which ended up saving us. Because the first the first Friday we went out there, there was, you know, hundreds of people around.

And we did this drama, old 19 seventies drama, and they booed us, laughed at us, heckled us. I mean, like, it really caused deep anxiety to me. And Trevor too, like, our whole team was so distraught. We didn’t know what to do, but we were scheduled to come back the next Friday and do something again. And so we were like, oh, no.

This is gonna be terrible. We get there, and first off, there was a riot. The riot police came in, shoved everyone out. There was an anarchist. They were anarchist group and, like, we’re, like, wow.

This is just, like, what’s gonna happen tonight with us. Meanwhile, we had been praying for a huge crowd. Right. Not not for a riot, but a huge crowd. You’re right.

Not a riot. That. And so yeah. After the right police left and kicked out everybody, the anarchists, then, you know, this huge group comes in of people. You know, I guess the news had traveled so they all wanted to come and hang out.

And so we do this drama that my wife wrote, and praise God she wrote it. And it was really, like, a really dramatic drama. Like, there’s, like, abortion in it. There’s, like, suicide in it, abusive. Like, there’s all this stuff in this drama where Jesus comes and saves.

And there are 100 of people literally sitting down on the sidewalk or on the on the on the square just listening and watching this drama. And then people were coming up to us and being prayed for. We were talking to people, a bunch of people, and I was just staggered. And, I think that was the last experience I’ve ever had with, like, a speaker square or open air, like, that type of place, like, where we’ve ever been heckled or even close to heckled. Because, you know, most places we go, there’s no heckling.

People are like, oh, drama. They run around. They don’t care if it’s from 19 seventies. But London, those those guys, they don’t play. They heckled us and it broke me, man.

It broke me. So that’s it’s pretty courageous what you guys, do and did in the speaker square. You have to get out of your comfort zone. Oh, man. Let the Lord work.

Oh, man. Don’t we know it now? I I think I’d be a good heckler. I don’t know if I have the voice to stand up and shout from the Yeah. You mentioned that, I was in, Amsterdam with a friend, and we were at the Remberan Square.

And we were walking through it. I had longer hair then. And, anyway, it seemed like every other person was either wanting to sell dope to you or or or buy it. We got across the square and almost stumbled over some people who were down on the ground sitting there, and and I noticed their eyes are closed. Oh, they’re praying.

And I looked around and there are all these little groups of people. And this was a square across from Rembrandt Square. And I thought, what in the world is going on? You know, it’s a Christian group and and, obviously, and something happened. Well, it was youth with a mission.

They had they had gone Wow. There, and they had, performed a drama. Apparently, it was pretty moving because there were all these people praying with others who had just accepted the lord because of that particular drama right across from what was going on, with Rembrandt Square with all of them. Amsterdam. This is Amsterdam.

And I was Way to go, YWAMers. Yeah. Yeah. I bet that was probably Floyd McClung. Wasn’t he on the devil’s doorstep in Amsterdam?

And what what year was this? This was 1980. Oh, yeah. He probably would have been there. Yeah.

Yeah. And you had long hair. You’re a hippie, weren’t you? Oh, I was a hippie. Oh, yeah.

That’s why we like you. That’s why we like you. Tail end. Tail end. Yeah.

Alright. Be sure to leave reviews on iTunes, and thanks for listening. See you next week.