In light of a bunch of interfaith conversations, which I find tend to go in a cyclical fashion with regards to the Trinity and Incarnation, I think, perhaps, I have come to understand at least one of the root points of divergence – or perceived divergence – between Muslim and Christian understandings of the divine essence.
So, when I hear a Muslim say that God has no partners, it doesn’t make me – as a Christian – automatically think that it’s meant to disclaim the Trinity, because I don’t view the Trinity as some sort of committee board meeting of disparate parties. They can’t just take off in their own directions and fall to quarreling, like pagan gods are often depicted as doing. They are He. If we were to make any pagan analogy at all, it would be the different “faces” of various deities, such as the Maiden, Mother, Crone of Celtic lore or Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva in Hindu mythology.
But in keeping with our Abrahamic heritage, our understanding of the divine is not merely a superpowered being from another dimension of reality, as many pagan gods tend to be portrayed, but rather the essence of all realities, and indeed, unrealities (all that is seen and unseen, all that is and is not). All potential, whether realized or not, arises from God. Indeed, as Islam affirms in the Arabic tongue, la ilaha illallah. There is no god but God, or as the Sufis reflect upon it, there is no reality but the one reality. My belief in the Trinity does not in any way compromise my belief that God is, indeed, the only source and center of reality.
When a Muslim says that God is indivisible, again, I wouldn’t automatically think that was intended to disclaim the Trinity, because I already believe the Trinity is indivisible, not pull-apart like a breakfast bun or a patchwork quilt loosely stitched together. It is not God + a man + an angel/bird/what have you… God is the divine essence which binds the aspects into a full motion. Jewish mystical writings, such as Kabbalah, emphasize that God is more a verb than a noun – a dynamic force, a whirlwind, a dance – and this, I think, is at the heart of the Trinitarian concept. God is motion and interplay. Kabbalists would suggest this interplay takes the form of male and female aspects of the divine, the transcendent male and the immanent female.
Christians would describe the same concept in light of the Father (transcendent) and the Son (immanent). As with any two distinct parts in dynamic, there must be in some way a resolving force, the Love itself that indwells within the relationship. This, to us, would be the Holy Spirit. None of this, however, takes away from a grounding belief in God’s greatness, beyondness, and essential quality. The thing is that many Muslims clearly feel it does, as outsiders looking in Christian theology. Muslims excel upon the focus of these attributes of God, ones that I actually already believe in as a Christian, but most Muslims also believe that the other elements of Christian belief, i.e. the ones most keenly involving the outpouring and self-sacrificing aspects of the divine life, kind of sabotage the other ones, or discount them.
But when they bring up these points in a conversation or a debate upon theology, affirming things I already believe about God, I often find myself confused how what they’re saying is counteracting what I’m saying, because of my own comfort with Christian paradox, with the mysterious ‘both/and’ that has always been at the heart of my belief systems. But maybe that’s the key… we’re way, way, way more used to saying “yes” and “yes” to things that Islamic thought would interpret as being inherently incongruent and therefore categorically wrong. Basically, Islam as a religion based upon a recitation, has a more linear, orderly, mathematical style, whereas Christianity has a more organic feel, like a wild hedgerow, and has a common function of holding together seeming opposites, paradoxes, contrasts, dichotomies with the belief that it actually reveals a new, often radical, truth.
This spiral effect of Christianity, you might say, goes deeper and deeper down – plumbing the depths of things which on the surface cannot be dissected with tools of logic. However, once that plunge is made, it opens up a sort of drop-down menu that expands on the common page of reference Muslims and Christians share. Once one sees the menu, and if it actually “clicks” something inside that makes it resonate, there’s no way of looking at the world the same again. That having been said, others who haven’t had the same “click” moment with the menu think the cheese has slipped off our collective Christian cracker. And trying to put myself in their place, and see the world through their particular set of goggles, I can understand that.
The fact is, this cycle is likely to continue, frustrating as it can be for Christians and Muslims alike, who have the best of intentions trying to knock some sense into the other party. But here’s a thought…perhaps God is testing us all to
learn to debate with grace, and make sure that in the process of discussing the divine we do not cease to see the divine presence in one another. After all, our souls are part of the divine dance too.