THE
DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY AND 3.4 Three Persons but Same Essence or Nature (al-Dzat) 3.5 Relationship Between God The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit 3.6 The Essence (al-Dzat) of God the Father is in the Son and the Holy Spirit 3.7 God Is Not Splitting Into Three Parts 3.8 The Three Divine Persons Do Not Exist Side By Side In The Divine World 3.9 In the Trinity No One is Greater, Less, Separate Nor Subordinate One to the Other 3.10 Jesus Could Not Be Separated From the Father and the Holy Spirit 3.12 Jesus: God That Became Man (al-Hulul wa al-Ittihad) 3.14 As A Perfect Sin Offering For Mankind: God Became Man |
A combination of political and theological difficulties, partly occasioned by the “Nestorian heresies”[1] which argued that there were two separate persons in the Incarnate Christ, led to a settlement known as the “Chalcedon Creed”. A formal confession of faith at the settlement insisted on the unity of the two natures of Jesus Christ (human and divine) in the one person of the Incarnate Christ despite the existence of the two natures[2]. A resolution of the Church Council at Chalcedon (451 C.E) had made the following declaration: “One and the same Christ, Son, Lord…recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God, the Word, Jesus Christ.” Based upon “The declaration at Chalcedon” (but not the saying of Jesus himself), Jesus is thought to be truly God and truly human: “Without change, division, separation but rather the characteristics of each nature [Godly and Humanly] being preserved and coming together to form one person”. Pope Leo I (d. 461 C.E) gives an account of various heretical views on the subject of the divine and human natures of Christ, which, on his evidence, seems to be many. Leo’s explanations of all these heresies in his sermon 28 is as follows: “Almost every deviations involves a failure to believe the truth of the two natures in Christ within an acknowledgement of the one person.”[3] Alfred Garvey expresses this in the following words: “The denial of one or both of these natures in the one person had given rise to a number of heretical sects…Hence, the accepted formula was the unity of the two natures in the one person of Jesus Christ.”[4] [1] Nestorians: They are the followers of Patrick Nestorius, a well-known philosopher of the fifth century. Nestorius said that Jesus being God is true, and his being human is also true. But he did not accept that Jesus was one person who unified both natures within himself. The truth is that the essence of Jesus consisted of two persons, the one son, the other, God—the one, the Son of God, the other the son of Adam. The son was very God, and Jesus was very human. His theory was condemned at the Church Council at Chalcedon with the result that Nestorius was imprisoned and exiled. His followers were declared heretics. Despite this, the sect still exists to this day. (Maulana Muhammad Taqi Usmani, 15) [2] Muhammad Abu Layla, 256 [3] Wiles, Maurice and Santer, Mark, Documents in Early Christian Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1977, 73, in Muhammad Abu Layla, The Muslim View Of Christianity With Special Reference To The Work of Ibn Hazm, 262 [4] What is Christianity, 12 |
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