Islam and Christianity A Common Word: A very simple question for Christians. (In What Sense Is God One?)

thegrandverbalizer refuses to accept Christian understanding of Christian doctrine. Instead, he prefers his straw men.

In what sense is God one? (Scriptural references are appreciated).

Let's take a moment and look at the whole passage:

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.^{[a] 5} Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. - Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (NIV)

1. Deuteronomy 6:4 Or The LORD our God is one LORD; or The LORD is our God, the LORD is one; or The LORD is our God, the LORD alone

⁴Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: ⁵And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. - Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (KJV)

kai tauta ta dikaiwmata kai ta krimata osa eneteilato kuriov toiv uioiv Israhl en th erhmw ecelqontwn autwn ek ghv Aiguptou akoue Israhl kuriov o qeov hmwn kuriov eiv estin

For example if I am part of the tribes of Israel and I hear it said to me 'Hear oh Israel the Lord your God the Lord is One'. (Deuteronomy 6:4)

What would I take away from that message? Would I have to have deep knowledge of theological and philosophy to understand this?

What if I was just a simple shepherd tending to my sheep?

So what does it say? Let us just ask what does the just plain person who was sitting in front of Moses, what did they hear? What did they understand? The Lord our God is one what? The Septuagint is of great help here. Recall Exodus 3:14


And God said (8799) unto Moses, I AM (8799) THAT I AM (8799) : and he said (8799) , Thus shalt thou say (8799) unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent (8804) me unto you.

kai eipen o qeov prov Mwushn egw eimi o wn kai eipen outwv ereiv toiv uioiv Israhl o wn apestalken me prov umav

And now compare John 8:58

  
Jesus said (5627) unto them, Verily, verily, I say (5719) unto you, Before Abraham was (5635) , I am (5748) .

eipen (5627) autoiv Ihsouv, Amhn amhn legw (5719) umin, prin Abraam genesqai (5635) egw eimi. (5748)

Egw eimi? In both Old and New Testament. Jesus is claiming to be the same being who spoke to Moses from the Burning Bush. Would someone from Moses time get that? I don't think so because it wasn't revealed until Jesus did it almost 1500 years later. What the Hebrews at the time of Moses understood was that God is one being. Jesus revealed more light as to who and what God is. Did Jesus reveal more info? Yup.

I and my Father are (5748) one.

egw kai o pathr en esmen. (5748) - John 10:30

Hmmmm. Jesus used the same terminology for "oneness" as in Deuteronomy 6:4. Jesus makes a distinction between His person and the Father's person, but He makes not distinction in God's being or essence.

Cf. D. Block, has a book "How Many Is God: An Investigation into the Meaning of Deuteronomy 6:4-5," I thought this was a curious title for a book. A bit presumptuous. For example why not title the book 'How Many Beings is God: An Investigation into the Meaning of Deuteronomy 6:4-5."

After all if the Tri-Theist are going to keep coining new phrases, employing sophistry and clever semantics why presume anything?

Again with the Tri-Theist. We Christians - all of us - whether you accepts the distinction of person in the Godhead or ignore it - we all agree that God is one being. The Muslims are correct on that point. 

Why presume that God's being is 'one'? I really want to know on what basis do Christians say that God's being is one?

Why presume that God's person is :"one" as thegrandverbalizer does? The Bible doesn't. Yet the Qur'an and the Bible agree that God is one in being. 

If words have meaning what do they mean by that? Curious Muslims (and those searching for truth) want to know.

I want to know why thgrandverbalizer thinks that Christians are twisting words. We all instinctively make a distinction between  "being" and "person". No one answers the questions "What are you?" the same as the question "Who are you?" They are different categories and not the same. Here is another important point. I think that the Trinity is important but it's not a litmus test for orthodoxy. I mean there will be countless people in heaven who put their faith in what God revealed to them and not have as much of the big picture as we have today. For example, Neither Abraham, Moses, nor David knew that the Messiah's name would be Jesus, but they knew that God would provide such salvation and they trusted God for that. Neither did they know about God being triune in person. Yet we'd be stupid to think they didn't make it into heaven. 

³⁹ These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, ⁴⁰ since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.- Hebrews 11:39-40

Islam and Christianity A Common Word: A very simple question for Christians. (In What Sense Is God One?)

Septuagint Info


StudyLight.org

Scripture4All - Interlinear Hebrew Old Testament

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