A Paraphrase of Abu Raita’s First Risala on the Trinity

following Sandra Toenies Keating’s translation (available at https://archive.org/details/DefendingTheQuotPeopleOfTruthQuotInTheEarlyIslamicPeriod)

Abu Raita al-Takriti wrote various defenses of Christian doctrine answering Islamic objections. The document summarized below was written in the early 800s.

I have been asked to provide a defense of the doctrine which the Christians proclaim regarding God; in particular, that which we call the doctrine of the Trinity. May I be found equal to the task!

I fear that I will not. Yet my Lord, the Christ, instructed his disciples thusly: “Be not afraid of those who can kill the body, but have no power over the soul. Rather, fear him who can cast body and soul into hell.” He also tells us, “To the one who asks, give.” So then: If I am asked to defend the teachings of the Christians, may I now so do.

There are many points on which we Christians and Muslims (who agree there is only one God) are said to be in agreement regarding the doctrine of the one God (his power, his omniscience, his eternality, his status as Creator, etc). Yet even on such points as these, perchance we will find less agreement than was first thought. Let us examine our respective teachings fairly, without haste. I daresay you will find that our teaching is not what you (at the outset) believe it to be.

When both the Christian Scriptures and the Quran proclaim, “God is one,” the Muslim may seize this and claim, “Here the doctrine of the Trinity is refuted outright! By your own Scriptures, no less!” Yet the statement “God is one” must be properly understood.

As philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle have taught us, there are various ways we can understand “one.” Is God “one” in species? in genus? or in number? (If someone is unwilling to follow the argument past this point, I can only say that I have set out to discuss the issue with those who can argue on this level.)

If “God is one” means simply that God is one in number, then we understand the scriptural assertion to mean, “God is an individual.” But surely both parties will acknowledge, this is not all that the passage means! For to merely say “God is an individual” leaves us open to the possibility that God is one among other such individuals. Yet this idea exactly is that which the passage is meant to refute. Therefore, “God is one in number” is not the meaning of “God is one.”

[Here, Abu Raita digresses somewhat, offering a numerological argument based on the assertion that there are two “species” of number (odd and even). Three, he asserts, is the perfect number, for it encompasses both species in its components (one and two), and nothing more. This numerological argument is referenced again at various points. Let the diligent reader seek it out and judge its persuasiveness. He returns to this line of argument later, and I’ll summarize it there.]

Well then: Is “God is one” to be understood in reference to genus? But (as the philosophers have taught) genus is a subset of species. If we will say that God is the singular member of his genus, we end up saying again that “God is one in number,” or, “God is an individual.” We leave open the possibility of there being others who belong to God’s species by such an understanding of the scriptural assertion. Again, this cannot be the meaning of the passage!

Therefore we arrive at the final option: “God is one” in reference to his species. We could also express the thought this way, then: “God is entirely unique.” This, surely, is the meaning of the passage, as both Christians and Muslims will agree. God intends for those who would know him to understand that he is unlike anything else in all existence.

Let us return to an earlier point. You would presume that we agree on such assertions as these: “God is all-knowing. God is the Creator.” Indeed, we would assert that God knows all, and that he is the Creator. Yet we must examine closely our teachings regarding these things.

If you will assert that God is the Creator, let us ask: Is he the Creator absolutely, or predicatively? That is to say: Has he always existed, in absolute, as the Creator, or does he exist as Creator only in predication to his creation? (Let us understand these words by illustration. A knower becomes a knower predicatively, through knowledge. Yet a fire is fiery in absolute.) In which way is God the Creator?

I will proceed carefully through this question. If God has always been the Creator, must the universe be eternal? I am certain that you are not among the pagans who think such things! Yet did God self-create, then? Surely you will agree with us that God never began. Yet you will also agree with us that the world had a beginning. For God to be both eternal and eternally the Creator, there must be within himself the attributes of continuity and of division.

Thus I begin to describe the doctrine of the Trinity, as we Christians speak of it; of the singular essence [ousia] of God and of the three persons [hypostaseis]. We describe God by continuity in essence and by division in the persons. Further, we assert that the persons are his essence, and his essence the persons.

Shall we use an analogy? (And let us remember this important truth regarding analogies: We shall not press them beyond the point which they are meant to illustrate.) Imagine three lights in a house. They are three, and yet they are one. The essence of “light” in each is the same, yet they self-subsist.

Again, we cannot press analogies beyond their usefulness. For the lights, although one in essence, are instanced apart from one another. In regard to God, however (and this returns us to the question of God as eternally the Creator), one of the persons eternally exists as the fundamental source of the others.

This is how we are able to speak of them as distinct persons (for otherwise you might object, “There is no difference between the persons! They are absolutely one!”). Indeed, were there not properties differentiating the persons, you would be correct. But the persons are distinctly recognized thusly: The Father is neither begotten, nor does he proceed. The Son is begotten of the Father. The Spirit proceeds from the Father.

Let us consider another analogy. In essence, Adam and Eve and Abel are all one. Yet they are personally distinct. Such an existence is analogous to God’s.

You may reply, “Then by your own analogy, you acknowledge that you are speaking of three gods! For Adam and Eve and Abel are three human beings.” But I have warned you against this already! You are pressing the analogy beyond its intent! For certainly human beings, in their personal distinctions, and in their essence, are unlike the personal distinctions seen in God, and are unlike the essence of God.

All human beings have a beginning, both in their essence as humanity and in their personal existences. They occupy space bodily, in a way which precludes others from occupying that space. They are differentiated by their respective power, and by their distinct desires.

But God has no beginning. God is above needing a material space to himself, due to the immateriality of his essence. God is always in agreement regarding his desires. Since these things are true of the three persons, together and individually, how can we but speak of these three persons as one God?

As stated above: We Christians speak of God as continuous in essence, and divided in the persons. If you will scoff at this, let us offer further analogies. Consider the soul, the intellect, and the faculty of speech. Are not these, despite the distinction between each, continuous? For never was one existent apart from the others. Another: The sun, and its light, and its heat. Still a third: The body, and its soul, and its senses. In such created things, continuity and division are compatible. (Once more: Let us be careful not to push any one analogy beyond the point of its comparison.)

Perhaps you will ask, “Why don’t you describe God as ten, or twelve, or two, persons? If they are all essentially one, couldn’t you speak of him with whatever number you might choose?” But we describe three persons because three persons exist. And to further ask “Why is this?” is absurd. For the only answer which can be given is, “Because this is who God is.” Indeed, if someone would ask regarding your teaching, “Why is there one God, rather than two or more?” would you not answer in the same way?

This is an excellent test of any religion: If in its description of God it confesses, “Nothing is like him,” it is truly worshiping God. If, however, a religion describes God with comparison to creatures, then its goal is truly to remain ignorant of God. So when Christians hold out the doctrine of God as three in person and one in essence (unlike anything in creation), there we are confessing a God of whom it can truly be said, “Nothing is like him.”

The tri-unity of God shows him to be perfect thusly: Numbers are of two species: Odd and even. One and two, from which all other odds and evens are formed, come together without repetition to create three. Thus in the number three, we have perfection.

Let us move to the Scriptures themselves. For in various places the Scriptures show that God is not to be counted as a single one. Moses writes that at the creation of man, God said, “Let us make man in our image.” Surveying Babel, God said, “Come, let us descend.” Even in the Quran we find such statements: “We said,” “We created,” “We commanded,” etc.

Shall we treat this as a mere figure of speech? As a reverential way of speaking? Perhaps when humans speak this way of themselves, yes. But God speaks in this plural way and in a singular fashion. As easily as he says, “We commanded,” he says, “I commanded.” As easily as he says “We revealed,” he says, “I revealed.”

We also find this in the life of Abraham, as recounted by Moses. When Abraham sat before his tent, and saw the three men standing before him, he bowed to them and said, “Lord, do not pass by your servant.” He did not say, “Lord,” but, “Lord.” When David speaks in the Psalms of God, and of the Word of God, and of the Spirit of God, he expresses the three persons as well. And when Isaiah hears the angels crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord!” their threefold cry acclaims the three persons in the one God.

Perhaps you will suggest that we have altered the words of the prophets? But these books are in the hands of the Jews as well, who also do not accept our teaching. Will you suggest that the Jews altered the books, so as to deceive us? Prove it. Find the unaltered books.

Let me deal with more serious objections to our teaching. One will ask, “Why do you Christians object to speaking of three gods, or three lords?” Simply, it is not in accord with the text of Scripture to speak this way.

Another objection: “You should not speak of each person as God, but of the essence as God.” But as we may speak of “gold,” meaning either all gold or a singular piece of gold, so we may speak of God, in essence and in each person.

What of this? “If the Father is the cause of the Son, as you Christians describe, then the Father exists before them. Then they are not the same in essence, for they are not co-eternal. And if the Father does not exist before them, then he is not their cause, and you speak of three gods.” A worthy objection! But not all causes exist before that which they bring about. For fire is the cause of its heat, yet there is never a moment in which heat is lacking.

One more. “Anything caused by a cause is either a part of the causal agent, or it is the causal agent’s action. If the Son and Spirit are parts of the Father, then they cannot be called ‘God,’ being mere parts of a perfect whole. Likewise, if they are the action of the Father, they cannot be called ‘God.’”

I shall address both these suggestions. It is simply not true that everything which comes “from something” is a part of that thing, nor that it is the action of that thing.

First, we treat “part.” Something may be a part of a greater whole, and yet be complete in its own being. Moses and Aaron are parts of the whole of humanity, yet in themselves they are complete human beings. Some parts (hands, feet) may be incomplete parts of a greater whole, but this is not true of all which we would label “part.”

Now, what of your second suggestion, that the Son and Spirit should be described as “actions” of the Father? By “action,” we should understand something like the writing of a writer. Certainly we see that this is not descriptive of one whose cause is from another (for instance, one begotten from the begetter).

Let me point out, indeed, that for something to be from something may result in other ways. Eve was from Adam, but she was not a part of him, nor was she his operation, nor even his child. This is illustrative of the relationship which the Son and the Spirit have with the Father. Yet even this (all of this) fails to capture God.

This, the first teaching, has now been completed. Thanks be to God!

Thank you for reading. I pray this summary was intellectually and spiritually beneficial to you. My disclaimer regarding summaries like this: I may get things wrong. I highly recommend that everyone read more primary sources. I am writing summaries like this as an exercise for myself, as I read primary sources.

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