The objection
The Quran requires God's unity, prohibits saying “three” and denies that God begets or is begotten. Eternal sonship seems to violate God's uniqueness and introduce creaturely relationships into him.
1. The Christian claim must be correctly identified
In Surah 4,171 the Quran rejects speaking of three and sonship; Surah 112 emphasizes God's uniqueness and denies begetting.[1][2] Christians, however, teach neither three gods nor God's bodily procreation. “Son” initially designates the eternal personal relationship to the Father; Jesus' birth from Mary must be distinguished from this.
Mary does not belong to the Trinity. Surah 5,116 speaks of Jesus and Mary as deities allegedly worshiped alongside God.[3] This idea does not correspond to the Christian confession. But this does not settle the entire Islamic objection: Even a Muslim who correctly understands Father, Son and Spirit can reject personal threefoldness and eternal sonship.
2. Unity and unipersonality are not the same
Christian monotheism confesses one uncreated God. Father, Son and Spirit are not three members of a genus of gods. The Islamic objection goes further, concerning whether real personal relationships can exist in this one God.
The word “unity” does not answer this second question by itself. Anyone claiming that one God must be a single person uses an additional determination of divine being. This determination cannot simply count as a neutral result of counting.
3. Sonship is understood from Christ's revelation
John 17,24 speaks of the Father's love for the Son before the foundation of the world. John 1,1–3 places the Word with God and simultaneously on the uncreated side of all reality. This is neither a biological myth nor the deification of someone originally merely human.
The classical doctrine of eternal generation attempts to name precisely this eternal relationship without asserting coming into being, division or inferior deity. Thomas therefore distinguishes a relationship of origin from a temporal beginning.[4] A criticism of bodily procreation does not address this doctrine. A criticism of every eternal sonship does indeed address it—but must then argue against its biblical content.
4. The question of authority cannot be skipped
We do not use the Quran as a higher criterion determining what Christ may reveal about God. Likewise, one should not prematurely derive an Islamic confirmation of his deity from the Quranic designation of Jesus as Word or Spirit; these expressions stand within a different interpretive framework there.
The deepest difference concerns God's authoritative self-revelation. Christians receive it in the Son through apostolic witness. The task in conversation is therefore to disclose the actual statements and assumptions and interpret scripture. Respect for the conversation partner requires clarity about this contradiction, not its verbal blurring.
Biblical texts in context
Sources and further study
- Quran, Surah 4,171Primary text on speaking of three, sonship and the designation of Jesus.
- Quran, Surah 112Primary text on God's uniqueness and denial of begetting.
- Quran, Surah 5,116Primary text on worshiping Jesus and Mary alongside God.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiaeI, q. 42, a. 2: eternal sonship without temporal beginning.