Is Jesus God?

According to Islam, no: Jesus (Issa, peace be upon him) is a prophet and messenger of Allah, born miraculously of Mary, honoured, raised up to Allah, but a man who eats, prays and submits (Quran 5:75, 43:59). The Gospels also present him as distinct from God: "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28), "not my will, but yours" (Matthew 26:39).

The divinity of Jesus is the central divergence between the two religions;

here it is examined with the texts of each.

The Christian position, presented from its sources

Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate: "true God and true man" according to the definition of the council of Chalcedon taken up by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC, par. 464). God became man to save men from their sins by his death and resurrection. This dogma is not presented as a late invention but as the full meaning of the Scriptures, articulated at the 4th and 5th-century councils.

This position is recalled here honestly: it is not a straw man.

The doctrine of the union was moreover formulated with precision in the Christian tradition, and Ibn al-Qayyim discusses it in al-I'lam (the chapter on union and incarnation): certain Christian readings make of the three hypostases names of actions of one same essence, creation attributed to the Father (the Power), exhortation to the Son (the Word), life to the Holy Spirit (the Will), and the Word alone would have united itself to the flesh of Christ, according to the Gospel: "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

His answer holds in one question of logic: if the three are one single indivisible essence, why did the union take place on the Son alone, and not on the Father and the Spirit? Uniting what is indivisible, in part and not in whole, contradicts the doctrine itself (Ibn al-Qayyim, al-I'lam, the chapter on union and incarnation).

Is Jesus God? The Islamic position

The Quran teaches that Issa is a servant and messenger of Allah: "He was only a slave whom We favored and made him an example for the Children of Israel." (Quran 43:59).

It denies the deification of the Messiah (Quran 5:72) and gives a simple criterion of humanity: "The Messiah, son of Mary, was no more than a messenger. There were messengers who passed away before him, and His mother was a woman of truth; they both ate food. See how We make Our signs clear to them, yet see how they are deluded!" (Quran 5:75): whoever eats is dependent, and the Creator depends on nothing. For Islam, Issa's own faith is monotheism: he calls to the worship of Allah alone (Quran 3:51), and believing in him as servant and messenger is a pillar of the Muslim faith (al-Bukhari 3435).

Ibn Taymiyya devotes his great work of comparison, al-Jawab al-sahih li-man baddala din al-Masih, to this debate, and his answer on verse 4:171 deserves quotation: Christians claim that the verse confirms the union of divinity and humanity in Christ; he answers that the verse says the opposite, "a man like us", bearer of Allah's word and a spirit from Him, "far be it that the creating word of God be like us, creatures" (Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawab al-sahih, the chapter on the word and the spirit).

The verses cited for his divinity, and the Islamic answer

• "The Word was God" (John 1:1): the Quran also calls Issa (peace be upon him) "His word which He projected into Mary" (Quran 4:171) without making him a God. Being created by God's word does not deify the creature; and John 1:14 specifies that "the Word became flesh", that is, became a man who is born, grows and dies.
• "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58): the Islamic reading sees there the precedence of the messenger in Allah's design, who decreed and knew him before his coming (Quran 3:45), not the absence of birth. Christian exegetes read this verse otherwise: the divergence is there, assumed on both sides.
• "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30): the same oneness is asked for the disciples ("that they also may be one in us", John 17:21-22): it is a oneness of mission, not of divine person.

The verses distinguishing Jesus from God

They are numerous and come from the same New Testament: "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28); "no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32); "why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone" (Matthew 19:17).

"I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John 20:17); "that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3); "not my will, but yours" (Matthew 26:39).

Even Paul writes: "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5), and Peter presents Jesus as "a man attested to you by God through miracles" (Acts 2:22).

For Islam, this line of texts accords with monotheism: Issa worshipped his Lord, and never asked that his own person be worshipped.

Is Jesus God: why the question is central?

Because everything else follows from it: if Issa is a messenger, his message is the tawhid and no one needs a divine mediator to be forgiven; if he is made a God, the Trinity, the cross and the worship of his person follow. Islam decides by the Quran, which Muslims hold to be Allah's word confirming and guarding the earlier messages (Quran 5:48): the Quranic verdict is that "is only a servant" the one some have deified, and that guidance belongs to Allah alone.

"I only conveyed to them the message You entrusted to me... When You took my soul, You were the vigilant observer of their conduct" (Quran 5:117): for the Muslim, these words of Jesus before his Lord summarize his whole mission.