CHRISTIANITY through the lens of CHRISTIAN & MUSLIM SCHOLARS Part One

4.4 The answer of Ustaz Ahmeed Deedat:

Al Ustaz Ahmeed Hoosen Deedat[1], The President of the Islamic Propagation Centre International (IPCI) in answering the concept of One God in a Trinity when he attended a great debate in the United States with the mighty Christian tele-evangelist Reverend Jimmy Swaggart (now fallen) says:

“In Christian Catechism the Christian says that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God but there are not three God’s but One. That the Father is Almighty the Son is Almighty, the Holy Spirit is Almighty but there are not three Almighties but One… and it continues…

I’m asking what language are you speaking? Is that English? By God it is Gibberish not English…You said Person…Person…Person but not three Persons but one Person …I said brother Swaggart, you and your two other brothers. Let say you are three identical triplets but we can’t make the difference between the three one of you. If one commits murder can we hang the other? We say no. I’m asking why not? So you tell me that’s he’s a difference Person. I said right. What makes him different? His personality…So the Father, you know imagination the human mind, you can’t help when you use words it conjures a mental picture. When you say in the name of the Father you have a certain mental picture of that old Father Christmas Santa Claus millions and millions of time bigger than man but something like a man sitting on some planet with his feet dandling on the other on a footstool…the loving Father in heaven. When you say God the Son…you’re thinking of a handsome young man, blonde hair, blue eyes, nice beard, handsome features …and God the Holy Ghost something that came like a dove when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan or something that came in flame of fire at Pentecost.”

“I say the picture is not very vivid but the picture is there…you have three distinct mental pictures, and how so hard you try you can never super impose the three pictures and create one. There ever be three in your mind. But when I asked you how many pictures you see? You say one…brothers and sisters you are lying to me!”[2]

[1] Born in the Surat district of India in 1918 but had emigrated to South Africa shortly after his birth. The most significant of his life was in 1936 where he worked at a Muslim owned store near a Christian Seminary on the Natal South Coast. The incessant insults of the trainee Missionaries hurled against Islam during their brief visits to the store infused a stubborn flame of desire within the young man to counteract their false propaganda. Armed with this new found zeal, Ahmeed Deedat purchased his first Bible and began holding debates and discussion with the trainee missionaries. When they beat a hasty retreat in the face of his incisive counter arguments, he personally called on their teachers and even Priests in the surrounding areas. Since then, he has published over 20 books and distributed millions of copies free of charge. He has delivered thousands of lectures all over the world and successfully engaged Christian Evangelists in public debates. Several thousand people have come into the fold of Islam as result of these efforts. He once stated: “Praise be to Allah that in my 40 years of disproving the authenticity of the Bible which the Christians have so boldly asked for, I have been able to win the day.” (The Choice: Islam And Christianity: Volume One, Introduction; Is The Bible God’s Word?, 64)

[2] Debate in the USA –Swaggart vs Deedat, Comparative Religion Series 33&34, SABA Islamic Media (VCAD)