The Sean McDowell Show - "I Was Taught Christians Worship 3 Gods” | Former Muslim on the Trinity

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Tomas Samuel returns to the show to discuss his new book The Truth Unveiled: A Defense of the Trinity. Once trained to destroy anyone who challenged the Islamic faith, Tomas now devotes his scholarship to answering the most common Muslim objections to the triune nature of God, and his perspective is unlike anything you've heard. We walk through why the Trinity is the doctrine that Muslims attack most aggressively, why most Muslim objections target a straw man, and how the Quran itself misrepresents what Christians actually believe about God. READ: The Truth Unveiled by Tomas Samuel (https://amzn.to/494CnzU) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK)   FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA:  Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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tune in to the High Note podcast with Torin Wells. Welcome to the High Note. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Life Audio So sum up for us as a Muslim, how you viewed this Christian idea that God is triune? As a Muslim, this was a very major big problem for me because the idea for me was God, according to the Quran, according to different verses in the Quran, that God had a partner. And it is very challenging to understand that God is just one of a party. and there is a gang of gods.

If the Trinity were essential to faith, why no clear teaching on the Trinity in the New Testament? Yes, that's very important, and this is very unfair, in my opinion, that we say that it's unclear. Why? Because first of all, Jesus in many, many places, proclaimed himself as God, as a creator, he created eyes in action, that God entitles, that he sat himself before Abraham I am.

He said in many places proclaiming his divine, nature. So the absence of a word does not make the meaning and the core of what is behind that word is not there. No, if we dig it deep, we will find it everywhere. Why do Muslims so aggressively critique the doctrine of the Trinity? What are some of the most common Islamic objections to the Trinity? And what are the best responses? Our guest today, Thomas Samuel, is back on the show. He is a former Salafi Muslim who was taught to destroy anyone who challenged the Islamic faith. In light of his radical conversion of Christianity, he now defends not only the deity of Jesus, but the triune character of God.

He's here to talk about his new book, The Truth Unveiled. Thanks for coming back, Tom. It's good to have you. Thank you so much to be with you, brother. And it means a lot to be with you on the show. I really love it. And I love to watch all your videos. It's amazing.

God bless you. Well, you're way too kind, and we're going to get into your book on the Trinity. But I want to take a minute and pause for you to share your story, your background, of becoming a Christian, because this frames why you care so much about this topic. Yeah. As I said in the previous episode that I came from a Salafi Muslim and family, and they are very radical. So we grow with the idea that Christians and Jews are infidels. Like you have to know that. Like it's a ground knowledge.

And this means that they are making partners to God. And that God is not Allah, the monotheistic understanding, but he is many. And the Christians made Jesus God and Jews made someone called Israel God. or Zaire in Arabic to be more accurate. And they say that, and we used to say that it is, it is very important to not be allays with Christians and Jews because they are allies to one another. So if we are allies with any of them, this means that we are one of them. So any Muslim would like to avoid to be a partner to Jews and Christians, you know, to be

LA's with them. This is unacceptable. I grow up with that hatred till I wanted to go to jihad because I feel that they are persecuting the Arab countries and I wanted to go to Iraq, as you know. And then I didn't go and I started to focus on reaching out to Muslims to convert them to Salafism. And this was interesting because this was not satisfying for me. It was not enough. I wanted something to jihad, so I started to evangelize other people like Christians, and I started to win Christians to Islam, and I started to study Christianity, which led me to atheism, because I found that we don't have evidence to prove God, we don't have evidence, enough evidence for Islam, we don't have enough evidence, in my opinion at that time, for Christianity or for any other

religion, because we are not sure if God exists, and if Islam is wrong, everything is wrong. I cannot trust anything. And then through a very long journey from atheism to agnosticism to deism, to trying to take my own life to, at last, I met Jesus Christ in a dream telling me it is your time to follow me, which is my first book. And it was fascinating. And I went through this testimony through understanding who God is, not because I studied God only, but because he showed. me who he is because he talked about me. Even if I failed after that a bit, after a bit intellectually and I started to check new age and check other stuff, still, God was there. God wanted me to be for him and he got me back to him on all levels. I started to learn

about what is Christianity. I started to go deep in what is, who is God. And that's really what matters in Christianity. It doesn't matter who created or what created you. It's not a what. It's who. That's a major thing. And this thing changed my whole perspective. And it was really challenging.

It was not easy. Nobody think that it was like fluffy journey. Everything was smooth. No, everything was hard, was crushing, was scary, until God allowed me to or help me to come out of Egypt like he did with the Israelites in the past. And I think he did the Passover with me personally to pass out of this country to safety. Amen, brother. Your interview is one of my favorites.

It's probably top 10 or top 12 just viewed because it's so dynamic and powerful. And you're right what you just said. When we talk about the Trinity and some of the key differences between. Islam and Christian and other faiths is the character of God. Who is God? So sum up for us as a Muslim, how you viewed this Christian idea that God is triune? Yeah, this was, as a Muslim, this was a very major big problem for me because the idea for me was God, according to the Quran, according to different verses in the Quran, that God had a partner. and it is very challenging to understand that God is just one of a party, that there is a gang of gods.

And like, for example, when you go to Sura 5 verse 73, when you go to Sura 5, verse 116, when the Quran is very clear. God, they disbelieve those who say God is the third of three in other translation. is one of a trinity they try to fix the translation to fit to the christian faith exactly um but there is no deity except the one god so which is allah and whoever says something else is a disbeliever and on other when you study other verses you would find that there are verses that put jesus in mary as partners to god that proclaim that we did so like in sort of number 500 16, as I mentioned, oh Jesus, son of Mary, did you say to the people take me and my mother as

God's rather than God? Like, there is a family, God's family. And when you think of that carefully, you think of a all the time of a biological relationship of God, that Christians are accusing God of a relationship that is based on biology, like a sexual relationship. And for sure, any logical being will say this is unacceptable. Anyone who think for one second who will say, no, no, no, you cannot say that about God. So for me, the highest challenge is how they dare to think that God may have partner. And this was interesting because, you know, Ibn Taimiyah, one of the very well-known scholars

in the 13th century of Islam, he said something very interesting. He said, even, this is funny, Ibn Taimia or Ibn Hezb, one of them said, even if Christians say that God has no part and that they believe in one God, don't believe them they are lying to you. I keep in it.

They come to me saying, no, no, we don't believe that way. Ah, liars, liars. They don't say the truth. So for me, Christians are a group of people who believe that God got a partner because he has a son. And they say the son of God about Jesus Christ all the time. And there are different groups, according to the commentaries of the Muslim books, that there are different groups, who group that believe that Jesus is God, a group that believe that Jesus is Son of God, and a group that believe that Jesus is a prophet, but they destroyed that group until Islam came and revealed the truth. So this is how I used to think of it.

That's fair. Would you say before we get to what the Trinity is, I'm going to ask you explain, what do we mean by God being triune? Why do we believe it? Does many Muslims historically and the Quran misrepresent what Christians actually believe about God? Are they rejecting a straw man? Yeah, yeah. I believe that they take and that's a problem of every Muslim, even it was my problem one day before, that when I listened to the other to, the Christian. I try to figure out what I believe in about you

in whatever you say. So I search for my points in whatever you say. So whenever you say, son of God, oh, how? He's biologically. Because, for example, Quran say, the most merciful has taken to himself a son

that they say so. Be he glorified, there are but honored servants in Sura 21, 26. This is how we're trying to find out any reason to prove that our points about you is correct. So it doesn't matter what you say. It's a matter what we say. So yeah, many people, when you read carefully all the rejections of the Trinity, you will find that it is based on what they want to see.

There is nothing, literally nothing. Very, very, very few challenges to be very, fair, very, very few challenges are really respectable and really, yeah, you need to think of that and give an answer. But most of the other rejections are based on a very superficial reading of the scripture, very superficial connection on what it means and what we believed in across and how we showed our faith and discussed it and commented on it across years. So this next question could be an entire video in itself. But as simply as you can, what does it mean that God is triune?

What is the Trinity? And why do Christians believe it? Okay. There is a hard answer and easy answer. I will say the hard one very shortly, very shortly, just to state that this is the correct meaning. So in one sentence, the hard answer is, God is one in nature. one being, one in nature, three in hypostasis in his persons. Okay?

He is not one and three at the same time. He's not one and three from the same perspective. He's not one and three from the same idea. No, he's one from one perspective, from his nature, he's one. He's tri-union or three persons from another side. This is the hardest or the simplest form of the hardest answer. But let's take the easy. one. What does it mean God is one or God is tri-union? First of all, the problem here that we,

that make it difficult for us to understand is we want God, we start by judging God how you will fit to my mind, how I will make you squeezed and come inside me. Instead of starting from the point, okay God, teach me who you are. So this is the first thing. The second thing, the Trinity is simply, the nature, or God's monotheism is the nature of God proclaimed or revealed in his trinity in three persons, father, son, look, when I say, who is God? God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. What is God? God is one. So that's very interesting. Why? Because other religions struggle with that. Many other religions struggle with that.

It's very easy, by the way, to say what God is. Because even the Bible say that his glory is manifested in what he created, right? So it's through creation, you may know that God exists and you may know that God is one. But who is that one? Imagine if I go to Bayalha and say, for example, that, Sean, is one of the people. That is one of the people here who is Sean. Yeah, which one? Like, yeah, there are a lot of people here. And Sean may be a very unique name, but imagine if we said Michael is one or John. Imagine like what? Which John? So God is unique. God is one. And that means

that what does it mean? God is one. God is unique. There is nothing. like him, that is no one like him. At the same time, who is... Soldiers, you were about to embark upon the Great Crusade. From Focus Features and the producers of Darkest Hour. There are two major storms advancing towards the Normandy Coast. Experience the untold truth story of D-Day. If you invade tomorrow, they're going to be washed away.

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a lot about him, as we will understand further when we go to the book, through the book. I love it. That's great. We can spend a lot of time talking about God's character, but the way you framed it, instead of beginning with our assumptions and fitting God into a box,

we should have a humility and say, how is God revealing himself? And, of course, we believe God is triune because this is what the scriptures teach. Now, somebody says, well, the scriptures aren't reliable and doesn't teach that. That's a separate conversation we admittedly have not had here. But I think very simply put, the Bible says there is one God. We see that God is one in Deeronomy 6, and Jesus repeats that in Mark 12.

Of course, Paul repeats that. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each divine, and yet they're distinct. persons. So the try from Trinity, the threiness is in persons, the entity from unity is in the being or the nature of God. One God, three persons is what we mean. And I appreciate that you're pushing back on the idea that we need a perfect illustration for this because we're talking about the character of God. Now, we'll come back to illustrations, but I'm really just curious for you as a Muslim, you were, you moved from Islam kind of to atheism. You had this dream of Jesus coming to you. And so clearly it's like, who is this person, Jesus? Of all the things you had to overcome in your

errant theology, how central was the Trinity? Was this like one of the hardest things to just wrapped your theological mind around and start believing in? Actually, my journey with the Trinity is unique also, because God is unique, so my journey with the Trinity was unique. Fair enough. Because it starts with the idea that, look, I will focus on Jesus' divinity that he proclaimed. I will focus on scripture. He said, then he is. I started with this simple idea.

He said, then he is. And for me, this was fair enough because God is unlimited. God, I cannot put him in a box, as we said. So accordingly, he knows himself. better. He knows who he is. So I started to deal with that idea from that perspective, that I will believe in it as it is just because he said it, not because I analyze it. I have illustrations for that. Actually, I was against most of the illustrations. I'm always the, yeah, I'm always the noisy guy in the class. Thank God that I'm not in one of your classes so you

get scared of me. But I'm the guy who ask a lot. Like, how? What do you mean? But in what sense? I'm that type of guy. So in many classes, when I took, I was getting disciples, I had a big problem with the logical proclamation or the philosophical understanding of the Trinity.

I had a lot of question marks. So I started from the scripture. But then what happened, what has happened, that I started to, after time with faith, I started to read more about the Trinity. I started to read John. The Gospel of John is my favorite when it comes to the Gospels. All of them are great. John, the Gospel of John is tremendous for me. It's very specific and very wow.

So I started to feel like proclaiming who is God is a big thing. to know who is God, to understand who is God, is a mandatory thing. So I started to pray about it. God, teach me more about you. Teach me more about who you want. I started to read in church fathers, to read in different understandings, treat even in Muslim proclamations about what God is not. And I found the problem.

I proclaim. I may proclaim in yourself that I found the problem. That the problem we have, we always start from three and we try to make it make sense and that's a problem why because you jump to the personification of how god is personified or who is god before knowing and having and digesting enough god's unity especially with people coming from a Muslim background we have a a big, big problem with understanding God's oneness. Like, and that's my main question to many Muslims when I have conversation with many of them.

When they say, oh, but you know, Allah is one. I say, that's amazing. I believe the same thing. No, you don't. Oh, okay, okay. But let me tell you, I have a question about that. Yeah, what is your question? What do you mean by one?

And they always get me the stare, you know, like one, one? And they start to do like this one. So I start to say to them, one like that, like your finger? No, no, no, no. I mean one, one, like he's not many. And here is the problem. Here is the problem, brother. They always define God by what God is not.

Not with who God is. And that's a big problem. Like we start to say, what God is, oh, he is the creator. Okay, that's positive. That's good. Yeah, but who is he? Many people proclaim different creators.

So who is he, this specific creator? He is one. Yeah, in what sense? He is like no one like him. Yeah, yeah, not, I know, but who is he? Oh, like unique. For example, when you take the very fundamental suras or chapters in the Quran, a surah called Surat al-Ichlas, chapter al-Ichlas,

111 Yeah, I don't remember the number But is Surat al-Ichlas It says, Quulhu, Allah, Ahad, say God is one. Okay. Allahos Samant, we have a big problem understanding this word.

Samad means the one you go to him when you have a problem or means empty. The second thing, he is not born and he doesn't give birth. And nothing like him. So all the time, especially with Christians and Jews, when they try to define God, they always say,

he is the one who's not born and didn't give birth. Yeah, but this is like any people, many people could be not giving birth and Adam was not born. I mean, what do you talk about? So this is a thing that I think is a big struggle. What do you mean by the word one? Is it a number or is it a type? For example, our Bible say that the man leave his mother and father and stick to his wife and they become one. Are they one? Are they one? One person? No, they are not. But the Bible say that they are one. What do you mean? So one should not be only numerical. God is not only one as a number. God is one as a unity. God is one. So when you go from that understanding, it make a lot of sense after that when you speak inside the unity about try persons. It make different, different sense.

Yeah, so this is how I see it. It's interesting to bring up the Bible because the Bible is one book, but it's also 66 books. So there is a unity and a oneness, but there's also a diversity. and so the oneness of the Bible is not just in terms of number, although it is one in a sense, but there's a deeper unity in the message, in the meaning, in the theology that goes beyond just number. So just like the two shall become one in marriage, there's unity and diversity. The Bible, there's unity and diversity. Again, these will only get us so far, but help break down the assumption people have that one is so in terms of number, it's greater than that. Now, sometimes in these conversations, and actually

different conversations, I've had a number of Muslims say to me. They'll say things like, oh, you're a Christian, that's wonderful. We worship the same God. So there's this phenomena where many Muslims are very quick to say, we do not worship the trium God. That is heresy. But then on the flip side, at least in my experience, are quick to say, oh, we do worship the same God. how does the triune character of God help answer the question whether or not we do worship the same God? That's interesting because, yeah, many people, especially in the West, proclaim all the time that, oh, it's one God. You know, we don't want to have this conversation. God is fine.

God is for all this, you know, universal understanding of God. But the thing is, when I got this question, the first thing that jumped to my mind is, which is, God you talk about. I mean, who is God? And that's the problem that people say, oh, we worship the same God. I always say that they put you in a corner. If you say, yes, I worship the same God. Oh, so follow us. It's Allah. If you say, no, they say, oh, so you worship many gods. And brother, this is only one creator, only one God. Yeah, I know. But the problem that you may fall in a trap of what I call mis-framing or misdescription. You misdescribe a person.

It's very easy to say, oh, I like Sean McDwell. You know, he is this teacher in Oxford. You know, he's great. He's great. And, you know, I speak about him. And he is, yeah, he's a white guy with a bit white hair, but he work in chemistry.

He is great. I mean, it's normal that you start to make people. or someone with different things about him, and then you try to say that this is the same person we know just because we have common things. My answer to that, the question should be, not if we believe in one God, because the creator of this universe should be won by logic.

But the best question is, or to correct the question, it should be, do we understand God the same way? do we have the same understanding of who God is? This is a more deep question. And accordingly, no. My answer is simple. No, not at all. Because simply, you believe in a God, even in his characters,

we don't believe in the same characters of God. For example, you believe that God love is conditional because he loved the good people. He hate them not, the people who are not good. But I believe God who believe the whole world, who love the whole world. So this is how I believe in God. You believe in a God who need, this is interesting.

You believe a God, according to the Quran, who needs a partner to have a son. Because when you say, in one verse of the Quran say, and how he may have a son while he has no partner. That's interesting. Your God needs a partner to have a son. my God doesn't. He doesn't need a partner to have a son. He has the son from eternity. And this is what we believe called the Trinity. So we have a lot of million of differences. Even there is a fallacy that we may

fall in a lot, my brother, you know, the false equivalency. I have ears and the elephant have ears. This doesn't make me an elephant, you know. So the same thing. You say God is creator. I say God is the creator doesn't make them the same gone. That's a really good. That last one, I'm going to remember that and use that. The fallacy of false equivalency. Yes, both Christians and Muslims believe God is one, although we differ over exactly what we mean by that.

We both believe God as a creator. Well, that's like saying with an elephant in some sense, we both have a body, we both have skin, so we both have ears, therefore we're the same. that ignores the radical differences on the nature of an elephant and a human being and how Christians and Muslims view the character of God. That's a very, very important distinction. Now, I want to get to your book because your book, it's not just a general book on the Trinity. It's more a book responding to a popular Muslim apologists that you think still has relevance for today. So in some ways, I'm tempted to not say his name just because I know I will butcher it, but I'm going to say it, and you can just totally correct me here.

Your book is called The Truth Unveiled, a Defense of the Trinity, contemporary Muslim debates concerning Trinity with a focus on Ramatala al-Hindi's perspective with a Christian rebuttal. Now, that's a long title, but tell us who Ramah, and pronounce it correctly, Ramatullah al-Hindi was, and why? why you think his objections still matter today? Very interesting. First of all, I did my whole master thesis based on the same topic. So this book is the glimpse of my master thesis when I was doing my master's in theology. So this is important. So I spent some time studying the topic.

Rahmat Olai Hindi was an interesting character because his book still used. It is the major most important book in criticizing Christianity up till today. putting in consideration. May people don't know, Rahmatulah, Hindi was born 1818 and died 1891. Yeah, yeah, people maybe don't care about that. But they may know, for example, that he is the one who inspired Ahmed Didat.

Everyone knows Ahmed Didat. Your father knowing the best. So he is the one who, according to Ahmad Didat inspired Zakhernike and so on. So this man inspired very important key people in the world of polemics and apologetics. So his proclamations, when I was studying his book, I found that he has a whole chapter on the Trinity. And this chapter consists of around 50 pages. And he has around 27 proclamation against the Trinity in a very stunning. Soldiers, you were about to embark upon the Great Crusade.

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Discovered at Dolby Cinema. Offensive way, like, oh, Christians, you understand nothing about your own faith. And that's really interesting. Like, I like, I like your approach. Let's talk. but he was not there so we talked on paper and I found that

he put his topics or his defense on or polemical attack on three main characters or my titles like how Trinity doesn't make sense logically, rationally how Trinity is not supported

even biblically and how Jesus himself criticized the Trinity and what we say, how we defend the Trinity. So this was interesting, especially the part that Jesus denying the Trinity was really interesting to me. Jesus denying the Trinity like, what? And yeah, so I started to dig deep in that book and I started to decide, oh, this is my topic. I want to talk about that. That's really helpful. I did not know that his book is still the most widely read or widely used kind of anti-Christian polemic from Muslims. That was news to me.

I had not read it until I read through your book and you give his arguments and, of course, you are responses, let alone that he influenced Ahmed Didat, who is a local, you know, maybe he's watching this, but a local friend of mine, an imam near where I live, who I had him on the show and went and visited his mosque, told me in conversation. I said, hey, who's the most influential Muslim apologists? And he said, well, the goat is Ahmed D.D.D.D.D. who died a number of years ago. And this imam was not aware that my dad debated him. I said, hey, take a look at this and tell me what you think. And he hasn't gotten back to me. He's busy. I don't know if he

hasn't watched it or not. But that debate in probably the mid-80s in South Africa with my father and Ahmed D-D-Dot was arguably one of the most significant, Christian Muslim debate, certainly of that decade, maybe the century and beyond. People still talk about it. But this book influenced him. He's influenced modern day imams and other Muslims. So it makes total sense that you would go back to kind of this primary source and try to critique it. So I appreciate that you went back to primary source itself.

Now, the three levels are fascinating. He says it's illogical. It's not biblical. And this last one will come back to, which I haven't heard as much, is that Jesus himself rejected the Trinity, which of course is a brilliant move if you're a Muslim to say, you Christians think you believe in Jesus. Even he rejects your view of God. So it's a smart tactical move. Huge kudos for him approaching that. But give us an example of one of his objections, maybe one of the more well-known, more influential ones.

steal man it so we understand what his position is and then tell us how you'd respond to it. Yeah, one of his very interesting proclamations that it doesn't make sense logically because if God is the God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, if they are distinct, so they have a problem because this diversity should make them distinct because of a reason. So, for example, if you say God is the father, God is the son, God is the Holy Spirit, and you cannot say that these three are responsible for every action as one. That's their problem. So you have two problems here, or two answers.

They try to put you in a corner, double-edged weapon style. So they tell you, you have now a problem. You have to say, first of all, for example, that God is one and there is no certainty, so God is responsible for all his actions, 100%. Or you want to tell me that Father is responsible for 33.3% of the actions of God and the son responsible for 23.3 and so on. So this is how they want to put it down to say that God is sharing things together. Accordingly, you cannot say that God is one.

Otherwise, his actions will be distinct. This question is interesting. I give it a thought for a long time, but I had a problem. I give it a thought not because I didn't. I was like, wow, this is true. No, I give it a thought because, how should I make you understand that what you say is not right because of two things? First of all, let's put the rule.

God proclaim that he is tri-union and that's why we believe in it. Trying to explain it, try to make understanding how this makes sense. It's just a trial from humble beings who are trying to come closer to what we will never get fully. So this is a basic idea I need to put before answering any question. Because every answer I could is, will never be 100% like, oh, this is God. Because who knows that? But what I can say, that first of all, you have a problem because you think that God need to separate his work to make it done. instead of God is sharing everything inside his community.

So, for example, you want to make sense logically, humanically, like me and my wife are responsible for our son. So accordingly, I have the chromosomes X, Y, and she has the chromosomes X, X, X, so we share the, so we have parts of the thing. Yeah, but this illustration is not correct, because you hear talk again about very, very human, materialistic understanding. This is the way I'm seeking, materialistic understanding of how God does his work.

My answer is very simple to that. When you look to matches that fire, that you fire, if you want to light a candle through matches, can you light a candle with the three matches at the same time, or it doesn't work? It's okay, right? You can just put the three matches and light at the same moment, right? So the idea that you need always to have a sequence in action, for actions to be done, is not reasonable. You don't need to share things together. Oh, I did that, you did that.

So we need to start in sequence. Or we need to have time between us. We need to have a gap between us. We need to have shares between us. God is doing everything in His Trinity. This is what we believe as Christians. The idea that God is, needs to give a task, his task oriented, so the task should be distinctive. Yeah, it may look like that when you talk about his relation to us.

But when you talk about his eminent relation to himself, he doesn't, it doesn't work like that. God is one in his nature and his nature where the will comes and where he will comes. and where he decide things. And that's why they have shared the same, they have the same will to do things when God will never say, oh, let's do that. And the Father and the Son will say,

oh, let me think about it. No, God is not in conflict in His Trinity. Actually, no, it is in full completeness in His Trinity. So the idea that you want to put parts to God is very falling short to a very materialistic understanding. and you want to limit the spiritual dimension to what can happen only physically where we need sequence and time gaps and partner share. Yeah, the answer is not easy, I know, but at the same time, the question is so philosophical,

but this is, I think, what makes Muslim feel like, oh, we got it, we know for sure. But I have a bigger problem with that, that Muslim fall in the same trap. For example, when you say God has a word, God talks, when you say that God has a will, they have a problem between their schools, what does will mean? They didn't agree on that attribute that is it part of God. Or, for example, there is a school that say, we cannot make will eternal in God because this means that God is, let's say, if his attributes is eternal, this makes many gods. so they have a problem. So they started to say, no, his attributes comes in time. It's not eternal.

So without going so philosophical, they have a problem with understanding that. So before proclaiming how God work in our faith, you need to put down what do you mean by one? What do you mean by God is a spirit? You need to put it down. What do you mean by God can work together? at the same time, on the same task

at the same moment with the same will, even if he is distinct in his trinity. So, yeah, so it is challenging question, but it's not impossible to refute. The flame example is interesting and raises a lot of potential counter examples.

I only want to take it so far, because someone could say, well, you don't need three flames to light when you have one, but that's not the point. The point you're arguing is you could have one do it, or you could have three in unison do it at the same time. And on a Christian understanding, there's one God and three persons.

Well, they may have different roles in salvation. Their wills are aligned together perfectly towards the same end. So it's not like a husband and a wife who have the ultimate will. But at times my wife and I, we disagree and we have to work stuff out. and we have to compromise. It's not that way when it comes to God. So we can use certain illustrations, such as one book, the Bible with many books,

one marriage with multiple, you know, a husband and a wife. We have to be careful taking those illustrations too far because that's where we get into kind of materializing God and reducing him down to human relationships, rather than understand how God has revealed himself and how God works in the world. That's really important that I think you're drawing out here. And the bottom line is we don't have to answer exactly how God operates. We're talking about the characteristic of an infinite God.

But what you're pointing out is saying these objections don't work and they at least don't show an inconsistency in God's character. that's all the Christian has to do. If the Bible's true, we haven't demonstrated that here. If it teaches that God is triune, then philosophically we just have to show that these objections don't overturn that. And I think that's what you're doing here. Now, with that said, the idea that Jesus was against the Trinity is so interesting.

You give a bunch of examples in the book, you respond to them. But one of the passages that comes up that I think is one of the things. the more difficult ones you said you love the gospel john is in john 173 and the claim is that jesus himself refuted the trinity in this passage which says and this is eternal life that they know you the only true god and jesus christ whom you have sent so isn't there one true god and then jesus Christ distinct from this once you're gotten. Yes. This is very interesting points because I love the gospel of John and at the same time, when

you read this verse, you feel it's stunning. You feel like, oh, Jesus is very clear here. But actually not, because you didn't read the whole context as always. As always. So John 17 from 1 to 5, may I read it with you? Please. It will give us a huge help to answer this question. I'm reading ESV.

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come, glorify your son, that the son may glorify you. Since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give what? To give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life that they need. know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before that world existed. Amen. So Jesus

confirms here a lot of important things in these in these verses. at least we can pull out three, four, five things. For example, he's got son. This is very obvious, right? He's very obvious in the best. Second, the father should glorify the son. Wow. The son will not only because they always say,

oh, but the son is here to glorify. Jesus is here to glorify his father. Yeah, but his father also will glorify him. Should glorify the son. Thirdly, Jesus has authority over all flesh. and he has the right to give eternal life. The fantastic thing that when we go also a bit biblical thing here, John, the Gospel of John,

or John in general in his writings, use two words when he talks about life. He used the word Zue and he used the word Beyo sometimes. So when he talk about flesh and things, he talk about Beul. But when he talks about the type of God's life, He used the word Zewa. And this is the word that is used when he say eternal life. So again, this means a lot because if Jesus can give eternal life,

Jesus can give the type of life that God has to people, to share it, to live eternally. Wow. Fifth, the son had glory with the father before the world existed. This is the verse is saying. So this is what we get in the context. not only that the church fathers didn't pass this verse they they were amazed they started to think that actually this verse is one of the very obvious proofs that jesus is god because of this verse is totally and i want this to say this also now to all christians soldiers you are about to embark upon the great crusade from focus features and the producers of darkest hour

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Only in theaters this Friday. Discovered at Dolby Cinema. Trinity is very important. And whatever you think is weakness, maybe it is your strength point. Whatever you think is weakness, it is your strength point. Because the devil will not attack the weak ones.

He's attack the strong ones. So this is very important. Let's go for some of the father's understanding to this. St. Hillary, for example, he's saying, exactly, I'm coding. Therefore, this. confession is not separate from Christ, even in the subjection of his humanity, because he says, and this is eternal life, and that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ you have

said. First, there is no eternal life in confessing God the Father without Jesus Christ. What? This was an opening eye for me, an eye-opener. Like, yes, eternal life should together. You should worship both, you should believe in both, you should know both. It's not one rather the other or one and the rest is not important. Secondly, Christ is glorified in the Father in that verse. When it talks about glorification, it's focus and the Father is there. Jesus is already glorified in the Father. The last thing that I would like to say, he has a lot of a big word that you can read in the book, but I want to jump to San Augustinus because Augustine has a fantastic word here. Augustine said, the proper order of the words is, this is how he reads the verse,

that they may know you and Jesus Christ whom you have sent as the only true God. So it's both you and Jesus Christ whom you have sent as the only true God. This is how we should come to acknowledge you. So Jesus is actually stating deeply that he, is God and with the Father and that they are two persons in the Trinity in that verse. I mean

this verse for me from now on since I started the study who knows the Father must know the Son. Otherwise it doesn't work. Otherwise it doesn't work. You know the Father through the Son because he is manifested in the Son and you know the son through the Father because he's glorified

through the Father. This you cannot separate. it. And that's the problem. Many people want to look at each person apart. It doesn't worry. This is not the Trinity. The Trinity that they are, one unity. That's the thing. Amen. I appreciate that you go to the context. Say, let's look at the verses before. Let's look at the verses after. And of course, we can go to the context of the entire book of John. You know, in the beginning was the word. The word was with God. And the word was God. Of course, as you read further in the beginning of John chapter 1, it's clear that it's referring to

God the father. So the son is with the father, but the son is also divine. Since he's with the father, he's distinct from the father. So we can't separate. You're rightly to call me on this, and I did, because this is the objection that comes up, separate a verse from the larger theology of the context and the book as a whole, which clearly says the father and son are distinct, but they're both divine, and they come together, the only true God, the father, and Jesus Christ. That is a powerful claim of deity and arguably unity between the two of them. So I think you're on to something and your response to that. One other critique, before we get to kind of a practical aspect of this, and we'll wrap it up, is that if the Trinity were essential to faith,

Jesus and the apostles would have taught it clearly. And yet when asked the greatest commandment, Jesus simply said, love God with your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength, which is in Mark chapter 12, of course, referring to the Shaman, Deeronomy, chapter 6. If it's so essential, why no clear teaching on the Trinity in the New Testament? Yes, that's very important, and this is very unfair. in my opinion that we say that it's not clear. Why? Because first of all, Jesus in many, many

places proclaimed himself as God, as a creator, he created eyes in action, that God entitles, that he said himself before Abraham I am. He said in many places proclaiming his divine nature and proclaiming that there is, and we have the very famous verse in Matthew 28 where it says that sent when he was sending the disciples and he's saying go and peptize in the name Father, Son, Holy Spirit. So the idea of not having the Trinity clear in the writings, in what Jesus said,

in the writings of Paul, in the writings of different parts in the Bible, even in the Old Testament, there is always this understanding that the Messiah, at least in the biblical, Jewish part that the Messiah is God also. So you have this clarity. It comes gradually. So this is the first thing. The second thing, I like one theologian. He said before something very interesting, Sean. He said,

the Old Testament, talk about the father obviously, very clearly, and give some glimpse about the son. Then the New Testament talks about the son obviously, very clearly. And he gives, and the father for sure, and gives some glimpse about the Holy Spirit. And then the church disciples, the disciples of Jesus Christ, talked very obvious about the power of the Holy Spirit. And give a glimpse about what you can do in the Trinity. So the thing is that the work, that's direct. of understanding what they call it gradual revelation of who God is with very clear thing from

the beginning in Genesis. God is saying in the beginning was the word in the beginning God created heaven and earth in the beginning God created with his word heaven and earth and the spirit of God was over the water so it's not that hiding but at the same time it was gradual according to the dealing or the distinction of what we call the economical trinity how god is dealing with us so we can gradually grasp how we can understand that the three are one. The last thing I would like to comment here about that question. The Trinity is not only words and verses. The idea is not the word, trinity because sometimes they say, oh, but the word trinity is not in the Bible. Yeah, there are many words that is not in the Bible.

The word atheism is not in the Bible. Does this make atheism does not exist? The word monotheism in that sense in that literature, literation is not in the Quran. Does this make it does not exist? And so on. So you understand me? So the absence of a word does not make the meaning or the core of what is behind that word is not there. No. If we dig it deep, we will find it everywhere. But we need like 100 episodes to talk about that. Yes, we definitely do. You're right about the word.

One of my favorite examples is the word aseity, which refers to God's self-existence. That word is not in the Bible. but clearly the Bible teaches such as Exodus chapter 3, I am who I am, and Colossians 1, that there's an uncreated, eternal, self-existent God, and Jesus is that God. So the word assaity is not in the Bible, but it's taught. Well, the word Trinity is not in the Bible. It was added out of tri-threness and entity oneness to try to capture what the Bible teaches about the character of God. One example that I often hear is, you know, when it comes to understanding, you know, light acts like a wave and it acts like a particle, but why there's a certain mystery there.

There's not a contradiction, but there's attention in the world of physics. We find this in other disciplines. So there should be attention when we're talking about things. things like God's sovereignty and free will. How do we make sense of this? And of course, in God's triune character, we're talking about the most beautiful, amazing self-existent eternally, holy good being. It shouldn't be simple to understand the character of this God. So really, one of my big takeaways from this, Thomas, and I think this comes from just some of your background coming to faith is making sure that we don't import our ideas upon God, but let God speak

and inform us how we think about Him. And when we humble ourselves in that way, then there's a richness of understanding and just a richness of theological depth that comes from receiving God. You do that in your book. It's called The Truth Unveiled a Defense of the Trinity. And I want Folks, you know it's a master's thesis, but it's very readable. It's probably not something to read at midnight before you go to bed. It's the kind of book that's going to take a little working through to understand. But if you understand God's character and some of the leading objections to the Trinity, I found it fascinating, and you gave me the privilege of writing the forward for it,

which I was happy to do. So I hope all the apologists watching or listening will check out a copy of the book, The Truth Unveiled, and make sure you. you go back and listen to our story. I haven't dated. It's probably about two years ago, maybe that we posted it. It's one of my favorite and one of the top viewed podcasts I've probably ever done, certainly top 25, maybe top 10, because it's just a compelling story of somebody you hated God, hated Christianity.

Your life has been transformed. I think most people can see the joy on your face, even coming through this video of what God is done through you, even though there's some challenges you and I were talking about off. that you are continuing to work through. So God bless you, Thomas. Really appreciate you coming back and coming on. Folks, before you click away, make sure you hit subscribe.

We've got more theological, apologetic, scientific topics coming up to help you defend the faith. And if you thought about studying apologetics, we have full classes on theology in which we go into depth on what the Trinity is, how to defend it in our master's program here at Talba School of Theology. information is below. One last thing, Tom, she might not know this, but we updated our certificate program recently. As for those not quite ready for ambassadors, but say, you know what, I want to

study some apologetics from the best, really, lectures in the world we got together and will guide through people in that process. There's a big discount below. All right, my friend, really enjoyed it. Thanks for coming on and working with us. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's my honor. Hey friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning in haven't done this yet. And it makes a huge difference in helping us reach and equip more people and build community. And please consider leaving a podcast review.

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